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.


That afternoon, after his weird encounter with Olivia and spending the day getting reacquainted with his mother, Oliver was greeted at lunch with the news that the road had been cleared of any hindering debris from the previous night's storm. He was pleased with the chance to escape that unusual Twilight Zone of a mansion. Even that crappy motel he was currently checked into was appealing compared to this place. Yet, as Oliver was eating his soup in the silence of meal time, he couldn't forget that strange room at the end of the hall and the curiosity it wrought. It shouldn't trouble him so much. Olivia was getting up there in years; it was entirely plausible that what he'd seen was just a lapse of sanity. He'd learned long ago to trust his instincts though and his gut was telling him that there was more to what he'd seen, that it was not just a case of senility. He needed to investigate that room.

It was just a matter of timing. Olivia would definitely need to be out of the mansion for an extended period. Clearly, she wanted no one to be in that room and, if he wanted to have time to satisfy his curiosity he couldn't risk her finding him there. Ideally, he'd also like to have his mother out of the house too. She was so changed by this place that he simply could not trust that her loyalty lay with him.

Then Olivia presented him with the perfect opportunity. She turned to him rather suddenly and said, "We are having a party for members of our church tonight if you'd like to attend, Mister Quentin." It wasn't the warmest invitation that he'd ever received, but he suspected that the elder woman was incapable of warmth. His mother shot him a frantic look, but Oliver couldn't pass up the chance. How was he to turn down his chance to get to meet the closed minded people that had almost cost him his very existence? He wanted to meet them, to hear their beliefs for himself.

Besides, how could he pass up the perfect opportunity to explore that room? So, he did what was expected of him. He attended the party, conversed with the members of his grandparents' church and avoided talking to either Olivia or Malcolm one on one. He did everything right so that when he exited the large, yet intimate gathering, no one had even batted an eye when he claimed to need the restroom and disappeared from the party.

He didn't let his minor victory get to his head, though, creeping on quiet feet towards that mystifying door. Ever since he'd seen the stern woman enter that room, it had plagued his thoughts. He couldn't figure out why the mystery was haunting him. There were plenty of other questions to occupy his mind, many of them more pressing then that room and yet...

Oliver sighed as he came to a halt in front of the wood door and knelt down. He knew why; he was avoiding facing reality. He focused on the room to keep from thinking about Thea. It had never occurred to him on his journey to Virginia that he might be returning Starling City by himself. The idea of going home without his sister had not crossed his mind. Thinking about the room was so much easier then dealing with all he'd suddenly lost.

It took him only a minute to pick the old door lock. It opened as he turned the knob and he was quick to step inside the room lest someone spot him. He leaned back against the door for a moment with his eyes closed before he opened them and discovered…nothing. He wasn't sure what he'd expected to find inside the room, but whatever it was, it wasn't what he'd found.

The room was simply that, a room. The walls were all dark paneled wood and the few windows were heavily curtained. There was a single twin bed and a nightstand was placed beside it upon which only a bible and a small lamp rested. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a dresser beside the door where Oliver stood. There was not a single speck of dust anywhere and nothing was out of place. It was all perfect. Too perfect.

Oliver stepped away from the door and began to look closely at the room for any sign of why Olivia would have come inside. There was nothing. Not a single thing, which was evidence of something peculiar in and of itself. Just as he was about to give up, having found nothing out of the ordinary about the empty guest quarters, he heard it. After a few heartbeats of absolute stillness, it came again: a creak from above his head.

He frowned in confusion. There was no floor above him and yet there was continual creaks and squeaks. It didn't much sense. Once more convinced there was something peculiar, Oliver began to explore the room in depth. He found the secret entrance inside of the closet on accident when his elbow struck it in an attempt to find the light switch for the small bulb above his head. Curiosity eating at him, Oliver didn't hesitate to climb the darkened staircase.

The attic room, lit only by moonlight streaming in through the single window he could spot, was nothing like the attic that they had possessed in Starling City. There was old, forgotten items cluttering the space, but the room's uniqueness stemmed from the art covering its wall space; every spare inch of wall space, not covered by furniture, depicted something. The pictures chronicled a great deal as Oliver walked the long space. The paintings near the stairway that he'd just climbed where clearly done by a child, but with each step he took the paintings that then evolved into drawings matured and grew in complexity. He'd be truly impressed by the body of work if seeing it didn't inspire such sadness.

With each depiction he passed, it became more and more clear who the artist was. The creations had started innocently enough: a tree, a butterfly, a dog. Just before the artist had run out of paint, the images became more telling: an older man pushing a little girl on a swing, a large house that looked like Queen Manor. Then mid room, came the most damning evidence, a portrait of himself and his father. Each step he took from that point was filled with dread as he passed images of Tommy, Laurel, Sara and even one of Detective and Mrs. Lance. Most prevalent among the images adorning the walls though were various drawings of his father or himself. There was only one person who could have made these. Some of the depicted moments had only been between them, between himself and Thea.

By the time he rounded the corner, the drawings were really well done, no longer the work of childish hands, but that of a skilled adult. Instead of the individual drawings that had covered the rest of the attic walls, these three walls depicted a single image: a large ocean with choppy waves and yacht struggling to stay upright among the unsettled water. It was an eerie depiction of the Queen's Gambit's final moment. Why had she drawn that? It was so painstakingly done too. It must have taken her weeks to complete, he thought, and then shivered. The idea of her, his bubbly little sister, in this attic for weeks was bad, though clearly based on the body of work displayed in this stuffy room, she been here for more than a few weeks. Oh God.

Thea didn't notice him, standing off to her right side. She should have heard him coming, he'd not been quiet on his approach, but her attention was entirely on the picture she was sketching on the floorboards. He took a few steps back and a little to the left so he could glimpse the image that had so engrossed her. Surrounded by both sharpened pencils and well used nubs was a picture of a place he had only visited once and could never forget: his gravesite. She'd taken great efforts in depicting both his and his father's headstones; the shading and defects in both stone surfaces were perfect. It was eerie.

She was focused, however, on the spot in the drawing next to his gravestone. His stomach plummeted as he leaned forward on his toes to peer over her head. She was engraving a name upon a third stone: her own. He reached then to take her shoulder. She needed to know he was there; she needed to stop drawing that picture.

She turned suddenly, startled like a frightened rabbit, and Oliver took a step back from shock. Her face was gaunt, her cheeks and eye sockets hollowed out, but it was the look in her gaze that scared him most. His Speedy wasn't in those eyes. His Speedy, who'd made him pinky promise to be back in just a few days, was long gone. The girl looking at him now was sad and lost to the darkness of life.

Thea turned her head slightly as she looked at him. She didn't move or do anything else; she just blinked at him. For several tense seconds, the siblings were a frozen tableau. Then Thea stood up, frowning at him, her eyes turning hard as she closed the distance between them. She stopped walking once the two were standing toe to toe with each other. He opened his mouth to say something, say anything, when all of the sudden she pulled back and punched him. He reeled back, reaching up to cover his jaw where her fist connected.

"What the hell, Thea?" He asked angrily. That was not the way he'd imagined their reunion taking place at all. She wasn't listening to him though; her attention was focus solely on her knuckles. Her eyes were locked upon her bruising skin as if she'd never seen her own hand before. His anger dissipated at the confused look upon her face. "Thea? Are you okay?" He asked, moving toward her, "Speedy?"

Her eyes snapped up to his then as if she hadn't known he was there. Suddenly, Thea was flinging her arms around him and clinging almost to the point of pain, but he didn't dare complain. He simply wrapped his arms around her and held onto her tightly as she cried into his shoulder and neck. For several minutes, the two of them just stood there hugging until the tears stopped wrecking her small frame. Only when he was certain that she no longer needed his shoulder for her tears did he pull back to look down at her face. Up close the little things he'd noticed before were so much worse. With his arms wrapped around her as they were, he could feel each of her ribs and the very top jutt of her hipbones. Oh God. His mind was reeling. She's alive. Mom lied. Why? Why did she tell me…why would she say such things?

"Thea, what-" He started to ask before realizing that he had too many questions to ask and no idea where to start. It had been six years, six long years, since they'd spoken. Too much had changed. She simply blinked up at him, patiently waiting for him to finish the question. Patient had never been a word he'd used to describe his younger sister before. Always a ball of energy, that was his Speedy, but now…"Why haven't you said anything?"

It took several seconds, but eventually she said, "Ollie." That was it. Just his nickname. It was all he needed to understand her previous silence. Her voice was raw, rough and pained as she spoke the singular word and Oliver pulled her close again.

"Oh, Thea," he whispered into her long hair. "How long have you been alone in this room? How many years?"

"What year-"

"is it?" Oliver finished for her and Thea nodded against his chest. "2012." She was quiet for a moment as she did the mental calculations.

"Four years." Thea had been locked up in this room with no one else to interact with for four years. His stomach dropped at the thought. His Speedy didn't deserve this. She didn't belong here.

"Come on," He said suddenly making Thea jump a little in his arms, "we're leaving this place. Now." She backed away eyes wide with panic. She shook her head negatively. "Thea, what?"

She picked up a book from the floor and a nub of a pencil. Her hand flew frantically across the page for a minute before tossing the book to him. Oliver opened the book and scanned her writings. Nowhere to go, Ollie. No home. No one. Have to stay. You should go. You need to go. Grandmother can't see you here, can't know you exist. Leave. He stared at her words, a mix of sadness, horror and anger swirling in him.

"No, I'm not leaving. Not without you."

"You have to!" Thea insisted, hand flying to her throat from the pain speaking had caused her. Oliver flinched in sympathy. How long had she gone without speaking that even such small sentences caused her pain? "Grandmother-"

Oliver interrupted her, "I don't care." He insisted, standing and tugging her up to join him. "I don't care." He repeated determinedly. He didn't know why his mother had lied, why she'd left Thea in here, but he didn't care. All he cared about was getting Thea out of this room. "You and I are getting out of here, now, and we're going home."

Thea's gaze dropped immediately to the floor then. Clearly, she had something to say, but could not do so. As that thought occurred to him, Oliver grew angry. Angry at the grandmother who'd clearly frightened Thea into complying over the years she'd been trapped. Angry at his mother who had allowed the young girl to sacrifice her youthful innocence for what? Why would mom do this? Why would she keep Thea in this room? Why keep her a secret from me? What the hell had happened? No matter what reason Moira could conceive of for this act, it would never be enough.

Looking down upon his sister, so broken, so shattered, Oliver knew his relationship with his mother would never be the same. His love for, and perhaps more importantly, his trust in her was in tatters. All of the sudden, she'd made it a choice between herself and Thea. Pulling his sister into his side, wrapping a protective arm about her shoulders, he realized it was never a choice. Thea was his sister, she needed him; it was never a choice. "Come on," he said softly, "We're going home."

"Home." There was such a dreaminess to the single repeated word that Oliver felt a pang in his chest. He'd suffered so much on the island and the one fact he'd taken comfort in during all of it was that it was only him who'd had to go through such horror. But it hadn't been just him. Thea had gone through something terrible too, something different, but equally damaging. It wasn't right that they'd both suffered. It wasn't right that the simple notion of home should make his sister so…hopeful.

Before he could ask her anything further, Thea was pulling away from him and moving about the attic. Her footsteps were slow and a bit shaky, as if she were unable to trust her own body to continue moving, but she stepped with confidence, dodging loose or uneven boards with the air of someone well acquainted with the room itself. He watched as she went from one piece of furniture to another, gathering articles of clothing he'd not taken note of earlier. With her arms full, Thea made her way towards a suitcase that had clearly seen better days. She struggled to open it and Oliver moved quickly to assist her in her task. Once the worn, navy blue case was opened and the pile of garments in her arms was deposited. He took a hold of the handle in his left hand and he wrapped his right arm about her waist to assist her.

She nodded slowly, agreeing to the next task without needing him to say it, and together the two moved down the stairs. It was an arduous task for the girl. Oliver couldn't help wondering how it was exactly that Thea had climbed the stairs to get up to the attic that morning when she was having such trouble getting down them. He pulled his sister to his side tighter as they finally reached the room at the end of the staircase. She was swaying upon her feet as they walked out of the closet and into the main room again.

Only with her at his side, did Oliver truly realize what had been so glaring about this room before. It was too empty, too clean. His sister had been living here for four years and yet there was no evidence of her. No sign that she'd spent even a minute in this room, much less four years. Why was that? Had their grandmother, who she'd spoken so fearfully of earlier, forced her into being this invisible? The thought made him even more proud of the art in the attic. She'd not been wholly invisible. She'd defied whatever made her forgotten in this room and made sure that the attic bore her markings. She made sure that she wouldn't be forgotten, even if it was in such a little way. It was an ever so small glimmer of the sister he remembered.

"Ready?" He asked softly causing Thea to jump a bit at his side. She nodded eagerly, the first sign of excitement that he'd seen from her yet. He smiled in the hopes that she'd stay as alive as she suddenly seemed. Together the two walked to the door as a unit, both his hands occupied, one on her hip and the other one holding her suitcase. She reached forward, hand hesitating slightly before the grabbing the knob and twisting. The door opened and Thea stared out of the doorway as if she couldn't quite believe her eyes. He gripped her hip just a little tighter to shake the shock from her and she looked at him, briefly before they crossed through the door together. Once in the hallway, Thea's eyes swept over her surroundings eagerly, trying to absorb everything. Had things changed so greatly over the last four years, Oliver wondered, or is it all the same as it was when she arrived?

Thea leaned curiously over the banister a bit to look down at the gathering still going on below. Huh. Oliver had kind of forgotten that there was a party at all. Guess that's normal for when one finds their supposedly dead sister alive in an attic nearly starved to death. Suddenly as if knowing she was being watched, Moira's eyes shot up to their floor and Thea scrambled back, terrified. It was such a sudden movement that Oliver stumbled as well, having had such a firm hold on her as she moved. He didn't need to ask her why she was frightened by their mother seeing them. It was obvious from the panic in her wide eyes, she feared being caught out of her room. Thea was crowding back against the wall, the furthest she could get from the bannister and anyone's possible eye-line. He recognized those behaviors. She was acting like a trapped and frightened wild animal. What the hell had they done to my baby sister?

He had half a mind to march down there and just lay into his mother, his grandmother, and whomever else for this. I'll start with our names and tell them all exactly who we are. He would do it too…except for Thea. She looked so scared just being out of that room. He couldn't put her through any confrontation. It wouldn't be fair to her and she'd suffered so much unfairness in the past years. Oliver wasn't about to be the cause of anymore harm coming to her. How then was he going to get her out of this place if he couldn't get her to the first floor safely? How?

"Thea," Oliver said approaching her carefully. Her green eyes shot to his immediately alight emotion he couldn't quite read. "What should we do? What do you want to do? Should we go down there and just leave or…" He trailed off, unsure what the other option was exactly. However, he couldn't force her to descend those stairs, though; not when she was so frightened. "Or we could head to the room I crashed in until everyone leaves," He suggested softly, moving to stand in front of her. It was the best he could do to shield her from what was frightening her so. "We can sneak out in the night and you'll need to see no one."

Thea just stood there and looked at him. She blinked and breathed, but that was it. Oliver couldn't look away. It felt as if the two of them were balancing on a edge of something as they stared at each other. He didn't want to risk her fall off that precipice alone. Then, suddenly, Thea's expression changed. Her features shifted from panicked to something blank, almost cold. It was worrying. However, before he could think too much on it, she did something Oliver could never have anticipated. She pulled herself up to her full height and crossed to the banister again. Instead of only peeking over it as she had done before, Thea peered over it without any attempt to conceal herself. She looked down at her dress, slightly dirty, and straightened the straps on her shoulders and tugged on the fabric about her hips. It didn't fit her skinny frame quite right, but still when she turned to face him, he found himself briefly astounded by her beauty. There's my Speedy.

"Let's go." She said, reaching out for his hand, almost instinctively. He grabbed her hand quickly and squeezed gently. Together, the two started down the staircase. It, like in the attic, was a slow descent, but no one took notice of them. The church going folk were much too focused on their inane conversations to see much of anything at all. The duo crossed to the edge of the large foyer, around the fringes of the party. The closer they got to the door, the harder Thea squeezed his hand, but he paid it no attention. Just get to the door, just get her out. That was all he could think as they moved stealthily. Yet with each step they took, Oliver felt as though something terrible was about to happen. There was no reason to think such things after all, they were almost to the grand door. Then it happened.

"Oliver." Thea froze beside him as their mother's voice sounded above the din of the party. He tightened his grip on her hand and urged her to continue moving with a push of his hip against hers. The girl took the hint and grabbed the doorknob pulling it open. As soon as the first gust of wind hit her face, Thea was running out the door dragging her brother behind her. He thought, for sure, that as soon as they breached the wrought-iron gates they would have stopped running, but Thea kept going. The further away they got from the house the more concerned Oliver grew. She shouldn't be running so hard, so fast. So suddenly.

Soon after that thought occurred to him, the duo was suddenly jerked to a stop as Thea collapsed to the ground. Her face was bloodless and scrunched in pain when he turned to look at her. Of course she cannot run. She's been stuck in that room for years. He handed the suitcase off to her and swept her up into his arms before she could think to ask him what was happening. He'd call for a taxi to take them to the motel as soon as they were far enough away, but for now… "I'm getting you out of here, Speedy." He explained softly and carried her further down the road.


A/N: Sorry, this chapter took so long. The next chapter is fighting me a bit, but it's almost done. Please review! It inspires me to write faster. ;)