Title: Wilted Flowers
Author: QueencestQueen
Pairings: Oliver/Thea (aka Queencest and/or Tholiver)
Rating: M (or E, depending on the rating system)

Summary:
What is this place? The sign on the gate said "Foxworth Hall." Its Gothic style was intimidating and foreboding. He couldn't picture his mother and sister in that awful place. They belonged in somewhere light and happy, somewhere like their family home was their rightful place, not this house of dread. What the hell had happened during those five years?

Notes/Warnings:
- AU for the entire series.
- Inspired by "Flowers in the Attic," by VC Andrews
- This chapter was not beta'd, unfortunately.

Disclaimer:
All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of this author. This author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


Oliver turned on his side, giving up on sleep for the moment. His mind was simply too busy thinking over all that he'd learned that day to allow him rest. For one thing, there was his mother. She acted so strangely whenever someone else was around, especially her own mother. It was as if she were separate people. Around him alone, she was the woman he remembered: opinionated, sure, and strong. Around Olivia, she was quiet, demur, and meek. The changes were often so sudden that they threatened to give him whiplash. Then there were the lies and he didn't really understand that. Why was she lying? Why didn't she just say "hi mother, I'd like you to meet my son, Oliver?" Why had she called him Jonas Quentin and said he was like a son to her? He was her son, no like about it. Any attempt he'd made to pin her down after dinner to question these things had been thwarted by his grandmother.

Olivia. She too was plaguing his thoughts. She was intimidating in a way that he found hard to define. Her eyes were hard and calculating. When she looked at him, he suspected that she saw through the lies she was told. He wondered, though, why she didn't call the two of them out on the lie. She didn't seem the type of woman to tolerate liars. He also wondered why, when he saw no warmth in her eyes, she had invited him to stay the night when a thunderstorm suddenly overcame Foxworth Hall. Clearly, she was suspicious of him, he supposed that she should be. Who in their right mind invited someone they didn't trust to stay a night in their home? Maybe she just posessed a keep one's enemies closer sort of mentality. He was just grateful that he'd not had to trudge down that steep hill in the rain.

Her husband, Malcolm, was also a source of confusion for Oliver. The old, slightly tarnished metal wheelchair and cotton blanket covering his legs were deceiving. It quickly became apparent that Malcolm Neal Foxworth was not the feeble old man Oliver assumed he was upon their meeting. He was steely-eyed and sharp-tongued. He dealt more backhanded comments to both his wife and daughter then Oliver could keep count of over the hour and a half that the four of them spent eating together. He made a point of telling the younger man of his wealth and considerable power as if Oliver should be impressed by such things. Around Malcolm. Moira changed yet again into the doting daughter. This was the worst change for Oliver to witness. Malcolm didn't deserve such attention, not when he spoke so unkindly towards them both and yet Moira still bestowed kindness upon him. It was maddening to watch.

All of that though was only taking up a small portion of his thoughts, the rest of his time his mind was consumed with thoughts of a little sister now truly lost to him. For some unknown reason, the only thing he could really recall was the memory of Thea's fifth summer and she was convinced that, if she simply believed hard enough, she could fly. Luckily for everyone, he'd managed to snag her before she leapt from the mansion roof in an attempt to prove her theory. She'd been so very mad at him for messing up her plan. She'd shouted at him and informed him that it "wasn't nice of him to change into a grown up!" Her little face had gotten so red. Of course, Thea hadn't held that grudge long at all and within an hour he was back to being her bestest friend again. But he hadn't been so quick to forget and terrible feelings had eaten away at him for having been the one to crush her dream. It didn't matter that he had probably saved her life as a result. He had just had to fix it.

One day, shortly before she was to start first grade, he spent all day running her ragged. Once she passed out from exhaustion, he carried her to one of their Towne Cars and had a family driver take them to the closest amusement park. After he woke her, he had her promise not to peek and covered her eyes with her little hands. He quickly got them both admission tickets and settled her on the swing carousel seat securely. He once more made her promise to keep her eyes shut and placed her hands on the safety bar in front of her. He slipped fluffy earmuffs on her ears right after he told her that she was "finally going to fly." He took the seat on the outside of her own and prepared to enjoy the simple, but fun attraction. Thea's delighted grin as she held her tiny arms out to her sides as the ride spun around and around made Oliver feel much like a child himself. He too had held out his arms and she quickly took his outstretched hand. The two of them had stayed on that ride until the park was just about to close. When the siblings once more climbed in the Towne Car, Thea fell asleep on his shoulder quickly, but not before she sleepily declared him "the best big brother in the whole universe." Memories such as that had given him the power to survive Lian Yu.

In all the time he searched for his family, not once had it ever occurred to him that she wouldn't be here. She was a certainty in his life, the only one he'd never doubted would love him. She was Thea. His Speedy. She was strong, brave and bright. He didn't understand how she could do what she did. It just wasn't like her. His mother's words bounced around his head, though, as he considered Thea's actions. "Thea was so positive that you were still alive, […] even when everyone else kept saying otherwise." It didn't surprise him that his little sister had ignored all the naysayers and stuck stubbornly to her beliefs. That was who Thea had always been: determined, certain. It made him feel vindicated that, at least, his Speedy had known the truth. Though he did wonder what it was that had given her that certainty. Why had she believed when no one else had?

"…propping her up, giving her strength." He had found strength in thinking of his little sister. He'd known that when, never if, he returned home everything would be different and the more time that passed the more he was certain that he would forever be slightly alienated from the people in his life. None of his relationships could ever feel the same after so much time had passed, but at least when it came to Thea, he felt like it wouldn't matter in the long run. She was his sister, he was her brother; they were solid, connected. He'd never had to worry that he wouldn't have her in his life when he returned. But clearly, he should have considered it.

He punched his pillow as his thoughts once more found their way to her death. Why hadn't he been here for her? He should have been! He should never have gotten on that damned yacht! None of them should have. If he'd only been here, he could have helped her, could have saved her. If he hadn't been running from the mess he'd made of his love life, he would have been here, but he'd chosen to destroy his relationship with Laurel by using Sara and now he'd lost the only person in his life who'd always loved him. If that wasn't karma kicking his ass, he didn't know what was.

He swung his legs out from under the thin, scratchy covers of the guest bed and made his way over to the large window seat. The tiny switch locks were quickly undone and the window panes were swung open before he sat down upon the cushy seat. Rain rushed in with help from the wind and pelted his skin, but he didn't mind. The cold drops felt good as he let his head fall back against the cushion. It was as if the heavens themselves were mourning his loss in a way that he could not. He'd lost too much to shed tears any longer so the sky did it for him. His eyes finally drifted shut and soon he was asleep, though it was neither peaceful nor dreamless.

He reached out, frantic to catch her hand before the greedy ocean pulled her away, but he couldn't bridge the two inches that separated their fingertips. Her bright gree hues met his and she shot him a slightly nervous smile and then she was overtaken by the water. "Thea!" He shouted, pleading for the ocean to give her back, and all of the sudden, he was no longer standing on the Queen's Gambit. He was kneeling by the side of a plaster bathtub, blood covered hands clung to the side as he peered into the shallow depth of water. The water was a diluted pink color that didn't hinder his view of her beneath it. She looked almost peaceful as she floated there, the tip of her nose just peeking above the water line, but she wasn't peaceful. Blood was still seeping from her wrists and every time Oliver tried to grab her, pull her out, his hands always came up empty, but stained with her crimson blood. "Thea!" He shouted, hoping that she'd open her eyes for just a second and see him there, see that she wasn't alone anymore. "Thea!"

"Oliver." He turned, looking over his shoulder, but there was no one there. He shook his head and reached for Thea again. Once more all that emerged was his hands covered in blood, her blood. Wetness fell upon his cheeks as he attempted yet again to wipe his hands clean on his clothes. It wouldn't come off and he'd not expected any different. Of course her blood was permanent, like the scars that littered the rest of his body, because he had done this. He'd murdered her because he'd been too scared to just admit that things between him and Laurel weren't working. If he'd just been brave enough to say the words...but he'd used actions and now Thea was dead. Because of him. Because he'd failed. "Thea!"

"Oliver!"

He was thrown suddenly into reality and the dream faded like vapor. He stared at his mother unable to comprehend her presence for a moment. Why was she there? Lian Yu was no place for her!

He gripped her arm, ready to toss her to the ground to keep her safe when their surroundings registered in his foggy consciousness. They weren't on Lian Yu; they were in Foxworth Hall, the home of his not-so-kind maternal grandparents. His mother was looking at him in a way he'd never seen before. It took a couple seconds for him to realize: she was afraid of him. Why?

"You're hurting me, Oliver." It was said in a soft whisper, but it hit him like a punch to the stomach. He watched in horrified fascination as, in a bright flash of light through the open windows at his back, the pink marks of his fingers began to fade as soon as he released his tight grip. "Oliver," she called again, drawing his attention away from the harm he'd almost done her, "you were screaming."

"For Thea," he supplied as a fragment of his dream resurfaced. She sighed slowly and reached for him. He leaned his head into her touch for just a second, taking comfort in her presence.

"You can't do that," she said in that soft whisper and he straightened up immediately, "scream," she clarified with a small frown. "My parents are very particular."

"Why are you so afraid of them?"

"I'm not afraid of my parents," she countered stubbornly, but he shot her a disbelieving look and she changed her tact. "They are very particular," she repeated. "anything that doesn't fit their narrow views is abhorrent to them. The consequences of not fitting their mold are...severe. I lived under that tyrannical rule until I met your father and now I am once more under their thumb."

"So don't be." It was a simple enough solution. "Walter must want you with him." It took everything in him not to flinch when saying that. "I don't understand why you're here if it's so terrible."

It was only when she stood up, and moved to close the windows he'd opened earlier, that he realized he had been laying on the floor. Huh. He must have rolled off the window seat while he was asleep. She knelt upon the cushions and pulled the windows closed, latching them in the process, before she spoke once more. "I screwed up, sweetheart. I let that everything your father and I worked so hard for slip away and I need to get it back." She turned to face him then, taking a seat on the plush blue velvet seats seemingly unmindful of the fact they were soaked with rain water. "In order for me to do that I need money and, as you probably noticed during dinner, my father is unwell." He nodded absently as the puzzle pieces started slotting together. "Now that I'm finally back in his good graces, I have to play his game and not do anything to risk my inheritance again. If I can just keep him thinking that I'm the daughter he wants until his will is read then I'll finally be able to undo the damage I caused."

Except to Thea, he thought bitterly but as soon as the idea flitted across his mind he felt guilty. It was his fault, not hers. Needing a distraction from the direction of his thoughts, Oliver asked, "Again?"

She closed her eyes briefly and folded her hands together. "Malcolm and Olivia are both a part of this small religious group. They've been members since before I was born and because of that, until I met Robert, I too was a member of the congregation. There are many, many obscure rules one must abide." She paused for a moment, searching her mind for examples. "Technology is a big deal breaker for them...that's why you won't find a phone on the property. You won't get a signal on your cellphone either until you cross through the gates back onto the main road."

That was...odd, but surely no reason for her to have been disinherited. Well, unless Malcolm was such an unreasonable zealot, which had not been a part of Oliver's original assessment of the man. It was possible that he'd been off the mark about his grandfather, but he'd gotten really good at reading people during his time on Lian Yu.

"One of these rules of their religion," she continued, "is that daughters may only marry if their father gives his blessing. Without it, in the views of their religion, a marriage is unholy and thusly against God." She met his eyes then, a truth never before spoken shining there. "My father disapproved of Robert and Robert disliked my father so he never really tried to change his mind. I knew getting my father's blessing for our marriage wasn't going to happen. I didn't really give a damn. I didn't, and still don't, believe as they do so what did I care if by the restrictions of their religion our marriage wasn't valid? I loved Robert and I was going to be his wife, come hell or high water."

She smiled then and Oliver recognized it as the smile that she'd always reserved for his father. It both warmed and hurt his heart to see it. Not for the first time, Oliver felt that the wrong man had taken the bullet that night. His father had someone here who loved him. So far in his nearly two years home, all he'd managed to do was hurt and endanger people he cared about. Tommy, Laurel, Felicity. Hell, even Helena and Sara had suffered in one way or another because it was he who returned. It should have been his father.

"My father was so enraged when we'd returned to tell them that we had wed. He called me a whore, claimed we were bound for Hell, and, here I do quote, 'marriages against God would bear no good fruit, only spawn of the devil.'" Children. Her father had said that any children they might have would evil. Him. Thea. Evil. That was just ridiculous!

"He only allowed me back, forgave me my 'indiscretion' after you and your father were... You were gone, Thea was..." Yet again, the sentence faded away into silence. "There was no reason to risk his anger again by telling him about you two and now..."s

"Now the lie has gone on too long to tell the truth." Oliver supplied and she nodded almost eagerly. He understood her train of thought. The lie she'd told, about who he was, was hurting no one and it wasn't as if he needed or wanted grandparents; he'd always just assumed they'd died when his mother was young and that was why they were never spoken of. "I'll play along as best I can."

Moira smile then, relaxed and bright. "You'll stay until lunch tomorrow, won't you? Walter's flying in tomorrow morning. The three of us can grab lunch in town so we won't have to be constantly on guard." At his look of weariness she persisted, "Please, Oliver? He is my husband now and I would so like it if you could find some way to be okay with that, sweetheart."

A smart man knows when he's beaten. His mother was the only family he had left. He couldn't let his reluctance to accept her new love separate them. He couldn't lose her too.

He nodded and she disappeared out his door, needing no more assurances then that. He stayed there for a moment, sitting on the expensive carpet, shivering as his wet nightclothes, borrowed from Walter's closet. What would his mother have said to her father if Thea hadn't lost her way? He shook his head, disappointed in himself for even pondering the what-if. Doing so would give him nothing but more sorrow. He made his way to the bathroom to warm his chilled skin and was determined not to think anymore.

After his shower, Oliver felt warmed but still unable to sleep so he redressed in his borrowed nightclothes, still wet from the rain but wearable, and decided to explore the large mansion. His mother had taken him on a brief tour of the estate after it became apparent that he would be staying the night. He wanted to know more, wanted to see all the nooks that his mother might have hidden inside when playing hide-and-seek as a child, things like that to soften the harsh impression he had of this mammoth estate. This house, these mysterious grandparents, they were pieces to the mystery that was Moira Foxworth Queen and Oliver hated mysteries.

He crept quietly down the hall, sneaking noiselessly past his mother's bedroom. Inwardly he had groaned when she presented him with the opulence behind that door. She was so proud of what her father's money had bought her. She'd always enjoyed the perks of money before, but this...this pride she took in it was verging on adolescent. He simply could not reconcile the woman he remembered with the one he'd met since arriving at Foxworth Hall.

He'd hidden his confusion and displeasure with her change well, using the same carefree partyboy mask he showed everyone who'd known him before, and complimented his mother on her courageous design choices. That huge, ugly swan bed was just so...overpowering though, he'd had to make his exit quickly before his mask slipped and his disgust for such overindulgence showed through. Before the island, he'd reveled in their family's rich lifestyle and now the mere glimmer of such attitudes made him angry.

Oliver was just about to head downstairs, maybe go check out the damage from last night's storm when someone began to come up the staircase. In the light of a new day the sight of Olivia Foxworth still set alarm bells off in Oliver's mind. Was it the color of her dress? The thin pressed line of her mouth? The steel in her gaze? Oliver couldn't pin his unease and distrust on any one factor and that was what really made him cautious. He'd gotten very good at identifying enemies over the years and Olivia Foxworth, his own maternal grandmother, was an enemy, but she was the most dangerous kind. The enemies he couldn't truly define had always been his most fearsome.

As she drew closer to him, he ducked back into his room and stealthily watched her as she passed his door. Her focus was upon a door at the end of the hall, however, and she'd failed to notice his hastily made retreat or the fact he was watching her. He, on the other hand, took note of everything he could. In her rather large hands she carried a picnic basket of about medium size that, based upon the smells that wafted in as she passed, contained reheated selections from last night's dinner and a jug of milk from what he could see of the top. She stopped in front of the door, shifted the weight of the basket to her left arm and pulled a single key from the right pocket of her dress. She slipped the key in the lock and with a simple turn of it and the knob she opened the door and entered the room.

Once the door closed behind her, Oliver stepped out into the hall once more. His ears picked vague, muffled words that he attributed to Olivia. Who was she bringing food to? Based on what he'd been told during his quick tour, Malcolm, Olivia and Moira were the only ones to live on this top floor of the house. The live in servants, like that unusual butler who answered the door, all lived on the first floor in the quote "servants' quarters." There should be no one in that room and yet the aging woman had carted that basket up those stairs and at such an early hour too. Why?

His ears strained to make out any further sounds from the room, but the only voice he ever heard was Olivia's. Yet another mystery to add to the ever growing pile since he arrived at Foxworth. Quick on his feet, Oliver turned and pretended to be utterly absorbed in a painting on the wall near him as the woman exited the room in question. He pretended not to see her or that she slid that key in the lock and clicked the mechanism in place. What was she hiding in there?

"Good morning, Mister Quentin," she said and he jumped as if he were startled by her sudden appearance at his side. "I'm surprised to see someone else up so early. Did you not sleep well?"

"I'm an early riser these days." He stated simply and she nodded, taking his explanation at face value. "Thank you for your hospitality last night, Mrs. Foxworth."

Her face wore a bored and neutral expression as she replied, "It is my husband you should be thanking, Mister Quentin, not myself." She turned to face him then and he instinctively mirrored the change, "My husband has a weak spot where Moira is concerned and so you stayed the evening, but you would do well to not overstay your welcome."

He frowned slightly as he considered her word choice, "But you do not?"

"Do not what?"

"Have a weak spot when your daughter is involved?"

A dry, rattling laugh escaped her cracked lips. "No, I see that girl for all the evil that she is and all the darkness she creates."

Evil, darkness, heavy words for someone to say about their own child. His frown pulled deeper and, just as he opened his mouth to defend his mother, she appeared at his side and pulled him away from the conversation. "Never, ever engage my mother in a one-on-one conversation," she whispered urgently. "She can see through a lie like no one I've ever met."

Try as best he could, Oliver couldn't wrap his mind around this version of his mother: so paranoid, so afraid. There was nothing for him to say in response to her assertion so he chose to say nothing. It didn't matter to his mother that he did not answer for she just continued speaking, "Walter's arrival has been delayed by business until tomorrow." Oliver didn't much care, but it was clear that his mother did and so he spent most of the day trying to cheer her spirits. But the mysterious room was never far from his mind. What was behind that door? Why had Olivia been talking to no one? The longer he stayed in this place the more confused he became.


A/N: Guys, I love that you all are favorite/following this story, but you know what else is an even better sign that you all like this story? Reviews. Please review.