Disclaimer: If you recognise it, I don't own it; you know the drill.

Feedback: Always appreciated.

AN: A shorter chapter, but as things start to change more from canon, I didn't want to stick too many big moments in one chapter, particularly with my current plans…

Run and Repeat

Thea was surprised to find that she was actually starting to enjoy her time working at CNRI. The job itself was fairly straightforward, and she appreciated that she was just playing a relatively small part in the bigger picture, but it was actually kind of nice to feel that she was doing something more than just having a good time for a change.

Plus, seeing some of the people coming in and out of CNRI looking for help…

Thea didn't think she'd exactly been selfish or elitist about the people who lived in this part of the city, but it was still different to see the people of the Glades up-close like this. Some of the current news reports on the area might portray it as basically being a hotbed of criminals, but looking at it from the perspective of CNRI, it was easier to see that the place had just gotten a bad reputation because of a few bad apples. Some of the people who came here asking for help seemed like they'd just been pushed to their limit, only breaking a few small laws such as stealing food because they felt like they had to, rather than because they wanted to…

Her reflection and self-analysis was cut short when she came out of CNRI to find Oliver already waiting for her on a motorbike, passing her a helmet and slipping down the visor on his own with a grim expression behind the eyes.

"Get on and hold tight," he said firmly. "I'll explain when we get there."

Thea liked to think that she would have protested about this treatment earlier, but right now the relative intensity of her brother's gaze made it clear that he wasn't interested in talking right now. Putting the offered helmet on, Thea got on behind her brother and wrapped her arms around his waist, tightening her grip as the motorbike picked up speed. She tried to keep an eye on the streets they were passing through, but she soon lost track of exactly where they were going; it was as though Oliver was deliberately trying to make it hard for anyone to work out where he was going, like he expected someone to be following them or something…

"We're here."

"Your club?" Thea looked at her brother in surprise as he got off the bike. "What are you- what happened to you?"

"That… relates to why you're here," Oliver explained, dismissing the distinct bruises on his face as he walked into the club and headed for the mysterious back door behind the bar. "Once you're in here, I'll explain everything."

"OK, that's not foreboding at all," Thea said, chuckling to exaggerate her growing apprehension as Oliver tapped numbers into the keypad beside the door. "So what's this… all… about…?"

Her voice trailed off as she started to walk down the stairs and saw the green arrows laid out in the racks on the walls.

"Yeah," an unfamiliar voice said suddenly, a light-hearted edge to the speaker's manner that seemed at odds with Thea's current surroundings. "It can be a bit of a shock when it all hits you the first time."

"Who the-?" Thea looked around the room in shock before her gaze settled on a young man wearing a casual shirt and light-coloured trousers, an eager grin on his face as he stood in a corner.

"Barry Allen," the young man said as he walked over to shake Thea's hand as she reached the bottom of the stairs. "Uh… nice to meet you, I guess."

"You 'guess'?" John Diggle's voice said, walking over to look at Barry Allen in surprise. "You didn't know her already?"

"Things were… complicated whenever I was in town before; I knew of her, but we never really spent time talking-"

"Would you stop talking about me as though I can't speak for myself?" Thea cut in, falling back on indignation at being ignored to avoid thinking about her shock at the idea that Oliver was the freaking Hood! "I think I can tell you if I met this guy instead of you needing to ask him-"

"Except I would have only met you next year."

"…Huh?" Thea looked at the young man in confusion, indignation replaced by confusion.

"Barry's basically from the future," Oliver's bodyguard explained with an edge of incredulity to his voice as though he couldn't believe he was saying that himself. "It's a long story, but he'll meet us next year when he comes here on a case, acquires superspeed in some kind of freak accident shortly afterwards, and the year after that he ended up running back in time to… well, now."

"…Right," Thea looked at the stranger, trying to decide how to react before concluding Oliver wouldn't have brought her here if he didn't trust this guy as well. "So… what are you doing here?"

"Stopping Malcolm Merlyn from using an earthquake machine to destroy the Glades in a couple of months."

Thea had clearly only thought she was completely confused the moment 'time travel' became a serious topic of discussion.

"I… Tommy's dad has an earthquake machine?"

"And Mom helped him put it together," Oliver cut in, his expression grim as he walked down the stairs to join the others.

"She what?" Thea stared at her brother in horror. "How- why-?"

"Before Dad… he gave me a book containing a list of names of people who had wronged this city," Oliver explained, his manner particularly solemn.

"Before he died?" Thea looked at her brother in surprise. "I thought he drowned when the ship-?"

"He made it off the Gambit with me," Oliver cut her off solemnly. "We were on a lifeboat together… there wasn't enough food and water for both of us…"

"Oh God…" Thea whispered, suddenly realising what he was saying even as she tried to stop her mind picturing it in detail. "You mean Dad…"

"He killed himself," Oliver nodded. "To save my life… and so I could get back to the city and right his wrongs."

"And… that ties into Tommy's dad?" Thea asked, trying not to think about what Oliver must have been through; the idea of Dad drowning had been bad enough, but the idea that Oliver had to see him die like that…

"From what Barry's told us, he was basically the person who wrote the list Dad gave me," Oliver explained. "He and a few other people were using it to blackmail key figures in the city a few years ago…"

"And now Mr Merlyn's going to destroy the Glades?" Thea looked from her brother to the mysterious Barry in shock. "You're from the future, so… you've already lived through this, right? How does the earthquake thing work?"

"Well… I didn't exactly keep up-to-date with the whole thing when I was reading about it after everything happened, but… the news said that Merlyn was planning to rebuild the Glades after he'd destroyed them with this earthquake machine, but he had to abandon that part of the plan after Oliver exposed his role in everything."

"OK, so what are you doing here?" Thea asked, trying to latch on to something she could question since the whole time-travel angle was something everyone else just seemed to accept. "I mean, if Oliver stopped this in your time- and God, that's weird-"

"According to Barry, I only exposed the plan; I didn't stop it," Oliver corrected grimly. "If we don't stop it this time around, that machine will kill over five hundred people when it's activated."

Thea wished that she could find somewhere to sit down after that latest revelation.

She just kept getting hit with shock after shock in the last few minutes, and she had a feeling that the hits weren't going to stop any time soon.

"How…?" she said hesitantly. "How can we stop it?"

"We're working on that," Oliver said solemnly. "I already confirmed everything Barry told me by talking with Mom-"

"Mom did that to you?" Thea looked at Oliver's bruised face with new incredulity.

"Actually, that was me," Mr Diggle raised his hand.

"Digg was dressed as the Hood and acted like he was using Oliver to make your mom talk," Barry explained with a shrug as Thea looked at him in shock. "Hey, it was his idea!"

"Which is why you're here," Oliver explained as Thea turned to look at her. "You can keep up your community service at CNRI, but until we've resolved this one way or the other…"

"You think Mom would-?"

"She wouldn't hurt you, but I'd rather be sure she's not going to try and run away and make things worse," Oliver clarified, looking apologetically at her. "I just… I wanted to be sure you were safe before I made my next move."

"Which is?"


"Markov?" Felicity Smoak looked at Oliver in surprise. "Where did you find out about that?"

"Basically… from Walter," Oliver said, hoping he wasn't crossing a line by doing that particular lie. Barry had assured him that Walter would be found alive even if he didn't know exactly where his stepfather was now, so he would at least make a credible source so long as only the right people outside of him, Diggle and Thea were told where he got this information.

"Walter?" Felicity looked at him with new intensity. "He's alive?"

"I don't know that for a fact, but I was checking over his papers at home and found a couple of references to it," Oliver explained. "I can't say for a fact that it's anything the company's been working on, but if you could run a check…?"

"On it," Felicity nodded, as she turned her attention to the computer screen in front of her and began to pull up a few other databases. Oliver stood and waited for a few moments, hoping that Barry had remembered whatever he'd read in the future correctly about where that device had been built or what it was called.

If he's wrong about any of this…

The young man hadn't been wrong so far, but this was far from a normal situation; if Barry Allen had remembered even one detail wrong right now…

"Here we are," Felicity said, looking up at him with a questioning expression. "There's nothing here about what the Markov Device is actually for, but it's being worked on at Unidac Industries, which is some kind of subsidiary that Walter apparently purchased last year."

"Do they have any information about how it's coming along?"

"There's some stuff about how they're still waiting on a few components, but again, nothing here to indicate what they're for or what this thing's meant to be used for…"

"Don't worry about it," Oliver nodded reassuringly at her. "That's enough to give me something to go on right now; just… don't keep digging into that any further."

"Really?"

"I'd… prefer to be sure what the device does before we do anything impulsive," Oliver explained, crossing his fingers as he hoped the IT girl wouldn't question this too much. "If this did have anything to do with Walter's abduction, it wouldn't do to tip anyone off before we're sure what we're dealing with."

"…Fair enough," Felicity nodded tentatively. "Just… let me know when you know anything else, OK?"

"I will," Oliver nodded.

That at least confirmed another detail Barry had shared with him so far, but he still didn't know where that second device the time-traveller had mentioned was at the moment…

And I still need to have a 'talk' with Ken Williams tonight.

He appreciated that the List was small-scale compared to the devastation Barry had told him about, but Williams' victims still deserved justice. He couldn't do anything to affect Malcolm Merlyn's plan right now, but he could at least show that the Hood was still operating as normal, which meant going after his next potential target…