Etta's Room - Palmer Residence
Star City

"They aren't doing anything."

"I thought they're all heroes," Clara said. "Aren't heroes supposed to do...hero things? Make things right that are wrong?"

"They're retired," Etta pointed out. "It's not like The Flash has ever gone and retired and then taken it back."

Alex shook her head. "That we KNOW of."

That was true.

It was hard to really know what to expect of the adults in their lives. After all, they'd just found this different side of them that they didn't know about before. "We shouldn't live with how things are," Etta said very evenly. "Why settle for the status quo of things when they're really not the status quo?"

"What are WE supposed to do?" Clara asked her younger sister.

Etta grabbed a tablet. "We've got the world at our fingertips," she reminded. "There has to be SOMETHING that we can do."

"We're teenagers-"

"We're the children of Ray and Felicity Palmer, I think that we can pretty much do anything," Etta reminded. Sure, Felicity and Ray weren't their biological parents, but no one ever seemed to realize that...there were just comments about how Felicity was far too young to have older kids. The thing was, their brains, for the most part...they worked the same when it came to things like researching and getting down to using technology.

"Normally we use those powers for good," Clara said.

"Yeah, the good of ordering clothes online," Alex added. "Or books."

Etta just stared at her two older sisters and then shook her head. "I'm being serious."

"We know."

"Don't you feel like you have to do something?"

"The adults know," Clara reminded her. "And Grandpa is going to get involved."

"Do you really think that's enough?"

"What else do you expect us to do?"

Etta was frustrated. Maybe it was just because the adults really weren't acting. A year ago, she wouldn't have expected more from them, but now that she knew that they were part of Team Arrow...that colored how she expected them to act. Not only that, but they knew what Vertigo was...they'd dealt with it before. "I don't know," she admitted.

Flashback - Three Years Before

Central City

Etta sat in her bedroom, boxes everywhere. Her desk chair was pretty much the only thing that was left that she could sit on in there. It was odd. It had been two and a half weeks since her parents had been killed. Two and a half weeks since everything changed. Etta had mostly steered clear of being in group gatherings unless she had to. It was too hard. There were too many friends who had lost their parents. There was too much sadness everywhere. She didn't want to hear from another person that they were sorry for her loss.

There was a light knock on her door and Etta turned, not saying a word. She'd realized the night before, before her bed had been broken down, that she hadn't talked to anyone in a few days...not since the funeral. The funeral had made it so final and Etta had felt like she just couldn't handle any of the emotions that came with grief or loss or anything else that she should be feeling. So, she'd tried to lock it all away. Her escape had been books. She'd probably read one or two every day in the last two and a half weeks. Luckily, no one had argued when she'd just left a piece of paper with titles and authors of books she wanted with her name at the top.

"I have your books."

She just stared at Felicity, who was standing in her doorway. Etta didn't say anything, though. She knew that they would be leaving soon, very soon. Tonight, they were staying in a nearby hotel as things needed to be packed into a moving van. She remembered that Ray had said something about looking for a place for them all to live in in Star City, but he was trying to get all of the legal paperwork wrapped up there in Central City first.

"We're ready to head over to dinner and then the hotel, though, so I figured that we could take the books to the car," Felicity suggested. When Etta just nodded and got up from her chair before grabbing the bag of things that she'd been asked to pack, she took the bag that Felicity held full of her books. "I know that you haven't wanted to talk...which is fine, but if you want to, I'm here...and Ray's here...you know that right?"

Etta knew that.

Maybe it was because even though they knew Ray pretty well, they didn't know Felicity as well...and this was all a lot to take in. Or maybe it was all of the questions that had started to accumulate in her mind lately that had put her off wanting to talk to anyone. Etta was fairly sure though that it all fell into the category of too much change, too fast, and having no control.

Etta finally just gave Felicity a nod. She still didn't feel like talking. She wasn't ready. Not just yet. Soon, but not yet. So, she followed Felicity out and gave one last look to her bedroom. This had been her home...had been the place that had held so many beautiful memories…

"We're going to go to sushi, I hope that's okay," Felicity told her and put her arm around her.

The thing was, it was hard to be angry. The truth was, Etta didn't even WANT to be angry, but at the same time...she felt like she needed to be. She hadn't cried, not since that first night they'd come and told them that their parents were dead. It was like she'd completely shut down and she could feel the build up of emotions inside of her and she just wanted to let them out. She couldn't be mad at her parents, though, they hadn't planned on leaving her...leaving them. And there was no way she could be angry with Ray and Felicity, they'd been nothing but kind and understanding and willing to do whatever the girls felt like they needed done or what they wanted. And then there were her questions, the questions that she was afraid to ask.

Did she want the truth?

What if it was the tip of the iceberg?

What if it was too much to bear?

/End Flashback

Etta's Room - Palmer Residence

Star City

It was the middle of the night.

Emotions were whirling inside of her and she didn't know how to express them. It had been years that she'd been bottling up emotions and though, she'd pushed on with her life, those emotions had still been kept inside of her. She'd never really grieved for the loss of her parents. It had been one night of crying and that had been it. She'd never mourned the loss of all of her friends and the memories she'd made in Central City. She'd never asked the question that she'd wanted to ask so badly.

There was no control.

For some reason, the fact that none of the adults would do anything proactive about the Vertigo problem had brought up this lingering emotional hurricane inside of her. Etta just couldn't be there. She had to be somewhere else. She changed into warm clothes and packed her backpack with books mainly and had planned on adding in some snacks and a water bottle. All she wanted to do was to get away and have some time to think.

She needed to be in control.

She needed to be somewhere else.

Really, it wasn't just the Vertigo, though. Etta had received a text from one of her friends from Central City, Pax. She needed help and even though they didn't seem to be able to do anything about the Vertigo, she felt like she could help her friend. She could easily walk down to the train station, buy a ticket, get on a train, read her way to Central City, and then help her friend. Etta was certain that she could do that. That she could be in control of her own life for one day. So many people saw her as a small child because she was so young, but her intelligence she had always thought made her older than her actual biological age.

There was a thought of a note, but Etta couldn't bring herself to writing down everything she felt on paper...to explain what was actually happening. She didn't think she actually could.

Quietly, she made her way out of her room and to the kitchen to collect snacks and a water bottle. Etta was also going to grab money from the emergency jar. Maybe this wasn't really an emergency, but she needed it for this...she needed it for her mission. That was the best way she could think of it. It was something she had to do, something that she COULD do herself.

The emergency stash was kept in the kitchen in a cupboard in a container that had held those weird dried onion things that you always saw on holiday commercials. Etta had no memory of eating those things on green beans, but somehow they had the can. Lifting herself up on her tiptoes, she grabbed the can and pulled out about how much money she thought she'd need. She had grabbed a little extra, just in case. Etta knew that she also had an emergency credit card that she could use, but the limit wasn't high enough for the tickets she needed to purchase.

It only took her a moment to gather everything and arrange it in her backpack. Slinging it back onto her back, she pulled up her hood on her jacket and headed for the door. Etta went over in her head what she'd brought with her, what she needed, making sure those two things matched as she reached out to open the door.

A light flipped on behind her.

Etta froze. She waited. She could tell from how the light lit the room that it was a living room light, it wasn't a hall light or the kitchen light. So, she just stood there and waited. She couldn't be sure WHO it was. Her stomach twisted and she tried to think of what she was going to say. It wasn't like she could lie, but she could think of what was the best way to relay what she had planned on doing.

"It's a bit late."

It was Ray and he didn't sound upset or angry with her. He sounded tired and gentle. She turned and saw him sitting there on the couch, just watching her. He hadn't even gotten up. He was dressed in pajamas and she wondered if he'd been sitting out there all night long. Had he known that she was going to leave?

"I," Etta started, but just couldn't bring herself to say any of the other words.

Ray got up from the couch and headed over to her. "What's wrong?"

"You're not doing anything about the Vertigo," Etta said, but that wasn't it all.

He was quiet and crouched down in front of her. For a moment, Ray was silent and he looked down with his hands over his mouth and seemed to be thinking. "This," Ray said. "Isn't about the Vertigo thing." He was quiet. "At least not entirely." Ray was looking right at her now. His eyes seemed bigger and there was just something about them that conveyed that he could be told anything. "Were you going to run away?"

The only child that they'd ever really worried about that with had been Alex. She was fairly sure that once Felicity and Ray had realized that if Alex left, then Clara would too (who would give way more obvious warning signs) they stopped worrying about it. "No," she said. "But I do need to do something."

"Can you tell me what it is?"

Etta stood there in silence for a long moment. "I have to help a friend."

"At three-thirty in the morning?"

"I need to be on the first train."

"To where?"

"Central City," Etta told him.

"Who are you going to see there?"

Etta huffed and looked down, unable to look at Ray. "I needed to go and help Pax."

"The one with the purple hair?"

That brought her attention to him. In that moment, she realized that this was one of the things that made Ray such a great dad to them. It had been three years, but Ray still remembered that their friend Pax had purple hair. Slowly, she nodded. "Yes."

"She lost her parents, too," Ray said. "Doesn't she live with her grandmother?"

Etta nodded again.

"Why does she need YOUR help?"

Sucking in a breath, she just stared at him for a long time. "Her grandmother's about to die. She has stage four cancer and the doctors say she can die any day and she doesn't want to go to foster care."

"Does she have any other family?"

"No."

Ray was quiet, but when he finally spoke, it made her think. "What did you think you were going to be able to do for her?"

Etta had figured that she'd bring Pax to Star City. That was really all that she'd thought about. She had thought it was a good plan. It wasn't like they didn't have the room. They had rollaway bed things and there was a queen sized air mattress in one of the cupboards. She hadn't thought it was that big of a deal. "Bring her home?"

"Sweetie, I don't think that's really the answer," Ray said gently. "She probably wants to be with her grandmother." He paused for a moment. "And if you bring Pax here without her guardian's permission, you both could get in trouble." He was quiet for a moment again and his voice remained gentle. "We can't just take her into our family, Etta… You can't just decide that-"

"But you adopted Alex."

"You're right." There was a long pause. "But that was different."

"How?" Etta pushed.

"Alex had no one to care for her, you were all close, and the decision was made by ALL of us," Ray tried to explain.

Etta tried to take that in. Three years ago, when they were all forged into a family, they had all decided to be a family. Felicity had even decided on it before she and Ray were even formally engaged. Ever since they'd taken them in, Felicity and Ray had treated them like they were their own children. Maybe that was why she thought it was so easy to bring Pax home with her, that's just what she wanted for her friend. She knew that there had been a lot of children who had been orphaned or had lost a parent that life and some were luckier than others, but they...Alex, Clara, and her were the luckiest of them all because they had Ray and Felicity...they had been given a family that didn't push or force things but were one hundred percent theirs and never leaving.

"Pax is the same age as Alex," Etta explained. She had a lot of older friends that were closer in age to Clara and Alex because she'd been in higher level classes back in Central City too. "I don't think there are a lot of people looking to adopt a teenager."

"You're probably right," Ray said with a sigh. He was quiet and looked down for a moment and then looked back up at her. He pushed the dark hair from her face, his hand cupping her cheek. "I don't know how we're going to make it right, but I promise you, Etta...we will figure out how to make sure that your friend is going to be okay."

"Really?" she asked. Etta was shocked that that was so easy, but that the Vertigo issue hadn't been so quickly resolved.

"But we're going to discuss it in the morning...when the sun's up...and your mom and I've had a cup of coffee or two."

Etta just nodded for a moment.

"Why didn't you think you could come to us about this?"

Etta thought that over. She REALLY thought that over. For three years, she'd held everything inside. She'd gone about telling herself that everything was fine or going to be fine, to be happy and grateful for everything she had and was given. It had taken her a little time after they'd moved to Star City to really believe that, but it hadn't been like that the entire time. "I wanted to be in control," she finally blurted out. Tears started to fall down her face. "For ONCE, I wanted to be the one in control of my life."

Ray looked crushed and he looked confused all at the same time. "Etta…" he whispered. "Hey," Ray said as he brushed away her tears. "You KNOW that you can ALWAYS talk to me or Felicity."

"Sometimes it isn't so easy."

"This has to be about more than Pax," Ray said.

He was right.

"Will you always tell me the truth?" she asked him, staring at him and not letting her eye contact with him move. She wanted to watch his reaction and she wanted to know that he really meant it.

Ray was quiet for a moment. "We always try to tell you the truth. Why would you think that we wouldn't?"

"My last name has always been Palmer...the only one who had to be changed when we were adopted was Alex," Etta said. "Why is that? Why were our names always Palmer?"

"That's something that your parents decided when you and Clara were born," Ray said. "Your dad took your mom and my surname...which isn't traditional...but it's not unheard of…" He shrugged. "Do you want it to be something else?"

"No," she said quietly and pulled away. Etta looked to the side for a moment and wiped away some of her own tears before looking back at him. "I just...I wanted to ask before…"

"You could have," Ray told her gently.

She believed him.

"Do you want to stay up and talk for a little bit?" he asked.

Three years.

She'd kept it in for three years.

Etta finally just nodded.

"Why don't you sit on the couch? I'll make some hot chocolate and we can talk for however long you want and about whatever you want," Ray suggested. "Okay?"

He was being calm and gentle and understanding, even though he didn't know everything yet. Etta nodded again and moved towards the couch. She wasn't sure if she'd tell him much, but she'd definitely enjoy the hot chocolate, it wasn't like she could sleep anyways. She was just glad that the topic of Pax wasn't dropped, that they were going to bring it up later on.

Flashback - Three Years Before

Central City

This was it.

They were leaving Central City.

For good.

The truck was packed and plans were set for them to go to Star City with Felicity and Ray. Etta wasn't sure how it was going to work. She wasn't sure how it was all going to work with Ray raising three girls, but she hoped that Felicity stuck around. She liked her, but she would never really be her mother...just like Ray could never really be her father. She was glad that Alex was going with them, that Ray had agreed to that...well, they'd all agreed on it. It was still hard to leave everything she knew behind. It was hard starting over, but she'd told herself that once she got to Star City, that that was it...she was starting over. It was going to be like she was a new person. It was really the only way she could really figure out how to make it all work.

"You're going to keep in touch, right?"

"We definitely are!"

Etta just stood there and watched Clara and Alex hug Pax. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that they had to give up all of this. It was just easier to decide to start over. This was one of the reasons she liked books so much. She could just hide and get lost in books...and if she didn't like it, then she could just open another one.

Pax hugged her tight. "I'm going to miss you!"

"I'm going to miss you," Etta said as she hugged her. It was definitely the truth. She hugged her tight and for a moment, she held on for dear life. This was going to be her leaving her life there behind. Once they separated, Etta held out a gift for her friend. She'd pulled out one of her favorite books and presented it. It was the closest way of leaving a piece of herself with Pax and in Central City, the closest way to keep them together.

"I know we won't be far, but it already feels far."

And she was right.

Etta felt it too.

"We're lucky, though," Pax told her quietly.

Maybe she was right.

It didn't feel like it though.

Etta knew what Pax meant, though. They both had family to take care of them, not every Central City orphan had that to say. It was different, too, because she had Clara and Alex. Pax had no one else except her grandmother. There was something so nice in knowing that she wasn't alone and that she would never be.

"You can come and visit in Star City anytime," Ray told Pax.

Etta knew that Ray was a good person and when he made a promise or a deal or anything of that sort, that it wasn't something that he went back on. If he was offering what he was saying, then she knew that they could count on it.

Felicity was there at Ray's side now, holding onto his arm. "If your grandmother says you can come visit, then you call us and we'll make arrangements to make sure you can get to us. You have our contact info."

Pax nodded and just smiled. "I appreciate that."

"And we can come back and visit, too, right?" Clara asked.

"Of course," Ray promised. "You just say the word and we'll be out here for a visit."

The goodbye was hard. It was harder to say goodbye to the city itself, though. To leave it all behind. The friends she had there, she knew, could be kept in contact with through all forms of social media and texting. It was still hard to leave. To leave it all behind.

This chapter of her life was over, she told herself.

It seemed to drive only it home that thought as she looked back at Central City from the train window. It seemed to almost fade away the further the train moved.

/End Flashback

Palmer Residence

Star City

Etta woke late.

It was the weekend, so it wasn't like she needed to be anywhere. She could hide away in her room for as long as she liked, if that was what she pleased. Though, Ray HAD promised that they'd talk...all of them...about Pax and what to do.

Even though it was clearly early afternoon, Etta could smell the distinct aroma of breakfast. So, she figured that she'd also take advantage of that. It didn't take her very long to change and run a brush through her hair. She pulled it back into a ponytail and forgot about it. It was just one of those days, at least for the morning. If she found out that they were going to be going somewhere then she could always change and/or fix her hair.

She'd peeked her head into Clara's room, but hadn't found her or Alex on her way to breakfast. When the kitchen finally came into view, she just stood there and stared. Breakfast had been extended from the dining area and kitchen into the living room. EVERYONE was over. It wasn't just THEIR family, but it was everyone else that was in town too.

"There's the sleepy head," Lance commented.

Donna lightly smacked him. "Don't give her a hard time, Quentin! She needs her beauty sleep! Teenage girls need LOTS of sleep."

"She's only ten."

Etta just tried to slip into her spot at the dining table next to Clara, which was waiting for her. As soon as she sat down, there was a plate put in front of her. "Thank you, Uncle John," she said and smiled up at him before moving to devour the pancake breakfast on her plate.

"How late were you up reading?" Clara asked her.

Etta didn't respond, but stopped eating and just looked towards her sister. Had Ray said anything? Did everyone know what had happened?

"She wasn't up reading," Alex responded with an eye roll.

Etta just eyed her two sisters.

"Eat up," Oliver told them as he went past them. Etta watched him for a moment as he moved to the coffee pot to refill the mug he was carrying. "We need to get on with this meeting."

"What meeting?" Etta questioned.

"They're being SUPER mysterious," Alex told her.

"FAMILY meeting," Oliver said.

"Really?" Clara questioned as she looked around.

"We're ALL family here, right?" Ray spoke up.

Her parents were sitting on the couch with Liv and they'd been talking with Sara and Thea when she'd come out originally. When she looked over, they were still sitting there. It was nice, but it was a little weird to have THAT many people crammed into their penthouse.

"Yep," Alex said. Alex, Clara, and Etta were the last ones that seemed to be eating. "i consider all these crazy awesome people family."

"I'm starting to think this place isn't big enough for all of us, though," Clara added. "You know, if everyone's going to stick around...and we're going to have these family gatherings more often."

"And this doesn't even include Team Flash," Felicity added.

Forks suddenly clattered and all three girls were suddenly looking towards Felicity. "Does this mean that we get to MEET Team Flash?" Etta questioned.

"Perhaps, but we were going to talk more about that once you three are done," Ray said.

"Done!" they all shouted and pushed their not yet empty plates forward.

There was a chorus of laughter that rang out. "No, really...you three eat…we're going to have a lot to discuss and figure out."

In that moment, Etta was fairly sure that this wasn't all about Pax. This had to be about something else too. She was hoping that everyone else had decided to move back, that they'd all be living in Star City again. It had taken Etta a while to really fall in love with Star City and to feel like this was her family...but the moment she did, she just wanted to be around them all of the time.

There was no budging the adults on the issue, so the three of them had just sat there and ate in silence. It was probably the quickest that Etta had ever eaten. She just wanted to know what the family meeting was all about and why EVERYONE had been assembled there.

Finally, everyone gathered in the living room. People were sitting on all of the couches and chairs, others were sitting on the arms of things or on the sturdier higher tables next to the chairs. Some of them were just sitting cross legged on the carpet, which is where the three girls ended up sitting. Everyone's attention was on Felicity and Ray.

"We've come together because we have two missions in front of us," Felicity announced as she tucked her legs underneath her and sat up taller. With this movement, Liv seemed to slid more into Ray's lap. "One front will be seen to here in Star City while the other will be taken to Central City."

"And we've called...our buddy there?" Diggle questioned.

"Yes, but we haven't told him anything more than to expect us to use the lab."

"Quentin...and Mom," Felicity said. The 'Mom' part was obviously an addition. "The Diggles...Thea and Roy and I will all be working on the Vertigo problem here in Star City."

"You mean at school?" Clara asked.

"If it's going on at your school, then it's something that's about to become an epidemic throughout the city," Quentin spoke up.

That made sense.

Especially from what she'd read.

Vertigo was a dangerous drug.

It made sense, though, to take the fight citywide. To try to keep people from dying. To keep as many people safe. THIS was exactly what they'd all wanted. This was what they'd wanted to see. What they'd expected. Team Arrow, all of them...extended or otherwise...they were showing that they really were still all heroes.

"Sara, Ray, Clara, Alex, Etta, and I will be travelling to Central City in order to work with Team Flash in order to assess the current issue," Oliver said. "They have had closer eyes on their own city...we're not going to just be looking in on Paxton Monroe, but also all of the other children that were orphaned three years ago."

"We ALL get to go?" Etta questioned.

"One of us needs to stay here," Felicity explained. "To run the company...there are a lot of important meetings that we just can't cancel."

"What if I don't WANT to go?" Alex asked.

"If you don't want to, you can stay here...help us here," Felicity said.

"You have a couple of hours to think about it," Ray told Alex. "We'll be taking the six o'clock train."

"Why wouldn't you WANT to go?" Clara asked Alex.

"We'll be able to see everyone," Etta added.

Even though she'd vowed to leave behind that chapter of her life three years before, there was something about going home that made Etta want to see that old life. Sure, some of the girls she used to know, she still occasionally chatted with, but it was never anything super personal. They were more like bored buddies that just wanted to talk. Maybe she just really felt the need to see if she had really missed anything about Central City or that past life, if she'd made the right decision.

Alex just shrugged. "I just don't know if I want to go back there."

"That's absolutely fair," Sara spoke up. "But you DO have some time to think about it until we leave."

"Everyone going to Central City should pack a bag with a couple days' worth of clothing," Ray said.

"Everyone staying...well, we can start dividing up the work and devising how we're going to do this," Quentin spoke up.

The room seemed to split quickly and Etta found herself quickly going to pack. She was going to see Pax, which was really all that went through her head. Ray hadn't promised her that they'd be bringing her home with them, but at the very least they were going to go assess things. It wasn't even like they were going to just assess for Pax, but for all of the other orphans as a result of the bombing.

In a few short hours, she'd be back in Central CIty.

TBC…