A/N: Okay, this is the last chapter that I for sure remember posting. Pretty sure the next two were still 'in progress' when I pulled the story the last time.
"Laurel's spending a few days out of town," Sara told Oliver as she checked her phone on their way back to the mansion in the back of the Bentley Oliver's family had preferred to use over the years. "She's excused herself from the case against your mother, citing her personal connections to the case. She wanted you to know she's sorry she couldn't do more."
"She did what she could," Oliver said, shaking his head. "I wish I knew how to reach her, make her see she's got a life worth living. But at every turn, it's like she finds the worst way to look at the situation and spirals deeper. Even finding out about Tommy didn't help her stop thinking that way. Maybe its best she isn't connected to the case. If Mom's convicted, Laurel would spiral deeper because she didn't throw the case or something like that." Sara sighed and nodded as Oliver looked out through the front window and saw the crowds waiting outside of the Queen Mansion. "Oh, good. The vultures are here."
The Bentley drove slowly through the throng of vultures, otherwise known as the respectable news media and their less reputable tabloid cousins, and the gates of the Queen estate, which swung shut behind the car, Oliver having kept the windows rolled down. "Tomorrow is going to be hell," Oliver predicted.
*DC*
Oliver's prediction rang true as the departure from the Queen Mansion the next morning and the arrival at the Starling City Courthouse was far worse than the cluster of media that had been camped outside of the mansion the previous night. Diggle and two other members of the security team pushed a path through the crowd for Oliver, Sara, Thea, and Roy, all of whom were dressed conservatively to show the correct level of somberness when it came to the proceedings that were to begin today. Oliver's jaw was set in a firm, defiant line as he strode purposely up the steps, Sara on his uninjured arm while Thea and Roy mirrored their footsteps.
Sara was clad in a black, long-sleeved one-piece dress and dark nylons to guard against the cold weather. Thea's outfit was a tad more revealing than Oliver would've liked, but that was because he knew (thanks to Sara) how many depraved assholes in this city jerked off to photos of his sister from paparazzi sites. It made him want to put an arrow in every paparazzi on principle and Sara and Felicity had had to explain to him why that would be a bad thing, with Diggle smirking in the background. Oliver and Roy, meanwhile, were both dressed in dark suits. *1*
Roy had admitted to Oliver he was feeling conflicted because he knew Moira hadn't been responsible for the Undertaking, but she had become the face of it, and the Undertaking had killed six of his friends, something Oliver hadn't known about him before now. It made Roy's determination to help the Glades, and his motivation for such, clearer and yet Roy had committed to standing here with Thea, knowing the kind of ire it would bring, and that spoke deeply of Roy Harper's character in Oliver's book.
Oliver, Sara, Thea, and Roy took up seats behind the defendant's desk, where Moira's attorney was waiting for the D.O.C. to bring in Moira. Oliver noted that there were live camera feeds for news networks as well as print journalists and internally grimaced. As if this weren't enough of a circus for Adam Donner to propel himself forward with, he was involving the national media, though it didn't surprise Oliver one bit. Donner was an A.D.A. with political ambitions, and he was probably on the short-list of people who were being considered for backing as the new prospective mayor of Star City, and that was only the beginnings of Donner's ambition. He wanted to run for higher offices, and unfortunately, he was clean enough right now that he was practically untouchable.
Moira was led into the courtroom amid vitriolic whispers and comments from the reporters who were responsible for the live news feed of the trial. Her expression had been tense upon entering, but it transformed into one of relief at seeing Oliver sitting on the bench behind where she and her lawyer, Jean Loring, were to sit. Someone probably told her about me being shot and she probably worried about me the entire night instead of focusing on herself, Oliver thought to himself. The assembled public and members of the press rose as the judge entered and the proceedings got under way.
"Moira Queen," Adam Donner said as he stood confidently in the center of the courtroom and delivered his opening remarks, "is the only known conspirator that worked with Malcolm Merlyn to perpetrate the devastating attack on this city six months ago. Merlyn is dead, and Moira Queen has thus far refused to reveal details of any other conspirators that backed Merlyn's goals. Her heartfelt plea six months ago does not diminish the fact that she had known about this conspiracy for five years and stepped forward to no one. Not the Starling City Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, not even Interpol when she learned of Merlyn's international reach."
Donner paused for a moment to let that sink in. With deliberate pauses and limited, but pointed, gestures, he was showing his training from one of the more prestigious law schools in the country as he wove the tale that he wanted the jury to believe from the get-go. "Moira Queen held her tongue until the very day of the Undertaking, but even when faced with the imminent deaths of so many, she waited until mere hours before Malcolm Merlyn unleashed his attack. She is responsible for the deaths of 503 people, and it is only justice that when this trial is over, her name becomes the 504th casualty of Malcolm Merlyn's madness."
You don't know a damn thing about justice, Donner, Oliver thought darkly though he maintained a blank expression. All you care about is your political ambitions. I hope you choke on them. *2*
Jean went next with her own opening remarks. "Moira Queen is not the monster that Mr. Donner has painted the picture of. She was unaware of any plan for Starling City until Malcolm Merlyn approached her soon after the funerals of her husband, Robert, and her son, Oliver, whom we all believed dead with his father. Merlyn threatened her remaining child, Thea, if she did not take Robert's place in his scheme to destroy the Glades, and with Merlyn having proven his willingness to take the lives of innocents when he destroyed the Queen's Gambit, Moira Queen had no doubt what fate would lie in store for her innocent 12-year-old daughter. So, she did as she was told, hoping that one day someone would challenge Merlyn.
"And someone did. Not the Staring City vigilante, whose sole purpose was to take down those of the elite he deemed corrupt according to his own moral code. No, the morning of the Undertaking, Moira's own son Oliver, whom she had gotten back less than year earlier, came to her and revealed he had spoken to Merlyn, challenged him, and Moira knew that Merlyn would once again take her son from her, and perhaps her now eighteen-year-old daughter as well, unless she did something. She spoke out to save her family and countless other families from Merlyn's insanity.
"The question you must each ask yourselves," Jean said as she drew her statements to conclusion, "is whether you would have challenged Merlyn the way Mr. Donner believes Mrs. Queen should have. Would you have done so, with your innocent children at risk? Would you have spoken up when there was no guarantee of safety for you and your loved ones? If the answer to these questions is no, then this witch hunt that Mr. Donner is perpetrating against my client for the sake of his own political ambitions must end with a verdict of not guilty."
Throughout Jean's remarks, Oliver's eyes had been on Donner and more than once, usually around the times Jean had mentioned Oliver, Donner had had an unusual expression of triumph on his face, and Oliver felt a sense of foreboding and wished he could have asked Laurel about any trump cards Donner had in store. But when she had texted Sara last night, she had told Sara that she was going to be turning off her phone for the duration of the trial. Quentin and Dinah, who had moved back to Starling and taken up a job at Starling University in their world history department teaching a course on ancient world mythologies, were out looking for Laurel and praying they didn't find her at the bottom of a bottle or with a needle in her arm. Sara had left the search in her parents' capable hands. Her mother had pieced together quite a bit that had come close to where Sara had actually been during her time with the League.
"We will break for a short recess, and when we resume the prosecution will begin presenting their case," the judge ordered. Oliver, Sara, Roy, and Thea were herded into a side room with Jean and Moira, the latter of whom took the chance to hug both her children tightly. Thea, in particular, melted into her mother's embrace. When she had gone to tell her about the incident with the Hoods, it had been through the telephone with a glass divider between them. This was the first time Thea was in her mother's arms in six months, and she was showing no signs of letting go until she had to, not that anyone in the room blamed the poor girl.
"I won't lie to you," Jean told them. "The deal that we were offered a couple of weeks back was probably our best chance for Moira to live a few more years. Donner has built a strong case, but if there's holes, I'll find them. Oliver, your mother only just told me about your conversation with Malcolm and how that inspired her to reveal the truth of the Undertaking last night when I was prepping my opening remarks. Would you be willing to take the stand about that?"
"I would," Oliver said. The audio and video from Merlyn Global the night he confronted Malcolm the first time, before he knew the truth about the man, had been scrubbed by someone. Felicity had been trying to figure out who and had, thus far, come up with nothing, though she had said the coding seemed familiar, like something she had seen when she was younger. So, Oliver wasn't afraid of spinning a yarn that more or less resembled the truth. It wouldn't be the first time he had had to lie under oath, and he doubted it would be the last seeing as the Arrow wasn't going anywhere.
Fifteen minutes later, a bailiff arrived to return Moira to the courtroom. It was time for the trial to truly begin.
A/N: I hope everyone enjoyed the chapter.
Chapter Notes:
*1* Now I've got a funny scene in my head where Felicity and Sara try to reason with Oliver that he can't just go putting the fear of God into people over them taking pictures (Felicity more than Sara, who would probably be stirring the pot).
*2* I always got the impression that if Donner hadn't gotten compromised by the Vertigo that he would have been using the trial to further political ambitions. Since I'm not doing the Vertigo storyline from the State v Queen episode⦠Now, what could Donner be smirking about? And will he get to play his trump card?
On another note, we get to see if all my time watching the Law & Order franchise is going to pay off somehow.
