Chapter 3 – Drunken Scare
An: I do not own Arrow. Thanks to my beta missmeagan666.
Oliver was awoken by the loud ringing of his cell phone. He glanced at the clock and found that it was 3:00am. The offensive object continued to ring on his night stand and against his better judgement, because no one he knew should be calling him at 3:00am on a Wednesday, he checked the phone to see who was calling him. He was not surprised to find that it was a number he didn't recognize. He ignored the call, placed his phone face down on the table and tried to return to sleep. It started vibrating. That was completely unacceptable. His father wanted him in the office at 7:30am for a pre-meeting discussion and he really needed his sleep if he was required to be a decent person at that hour of the morning. Oliver grabbed his phone and tried to turn it off but ended up answering the phone instead.
He heard someone say "Ollie," very faintly. Only his closest friends called him that but he knew all of their numbers by heart.
"Who the fuck is this?" Oliver growled into the phone.
"Ollie," he heard again. The voice was slurred but he would recongise it anywhere. Fear started to coil in his belly. She was not supposed to be awake at 3:00am in the morning calling from an unknown number.
"Thea, where are you?" he asked fearfully. He had no clue what his sister was up to but if it was anything like what he used to do when he was her age he knew he wasn't going to like the answer.
"Donsow," was the response he got which he couldn't decipher.
"Thea?" Oliver cried panic building in him.
"Give me the phone," he heard a male voice say in the background.
"Hello?" said voice said.
"Who the fuck are you and what are you doing with my sister?" Oliver growled. God help him because he was ready to murder whoever his sister was with.
"I'm the guy that took pity on your drunk ass sister, who by the way is so drunk she can't even walk properly. Her friends left her alone in a party in the Glades. She made the stupid decision to try to walk home, and dude, you're lucky she ran into me and not some of the other men in the Glades. Your sister would definitely be severely traumatized the next day, if she survived," the voice said.
"What do you want?" Oliver asked. Was this a kidnapping? Did they want a ransom for his sister?
"I want you to come and get your sister. She's a real pain in the ass," the guy complained.
"Where?" Oliver asked immediately.
"I'll text you the address but don't come in a fancy car. You'll attract too much attention and probably get robbed before you even get here," the male voice paused, "Hey Princess, don't go in there." Oliver knew he was talking to Thea. "Look just get here soon. This chick is a handful."
Oliver didn't need to be told twice. He jumped out of bed pulled on his jeans and a shirt and was reaching for the keys to the Porsche when he remembered the warning. Laurel had a Honda Accord but he had not spoken to her since the night at the club. He glanced out his window and saw the apartment opposite him over the pool. Felicity had some type of car. He made sure to grab his wallet and sprinted to her back door and started knocking on the glass.
"Felicity! Felicity! Open up please. It's Oliver," he yelled. He glanced around and saw a few lights flicker on in other apartments. He glanced down at Max in the corner and for some odd reason he thought he was disturbing the plant as well. He had only talked to Felicity twice and already he was picking up her crazy ways.
"Oliver this better be important," a grumpy Felicity responded as she opened the door to her porch. She had a big fluffy robe wrapped around her but Oliver paid no attention to that.
"It is. I need to pick up my sister in the Glades. Can I borrow your car?" he begged.
Felicity arched an eyebrow at him.
"Please? She's drunk and some random dude has her. He told me to come in a normal car," Oliver further explained, the information just tumbling out of him.
Felicity sighed heavily. "Meet me in front in a few minutes," she said sliding the door shut.
He ran around to her front door and just as he was about to knock on it she opened the door. She was dressed in jeans and a sweater with her purse in one hand and her car keys in the other. She stepped out of her apartment and locked the door behind her before strolling over to the driver's side of her car.
"Let's get going," she said. The lights on the car blinked and she opened the door to get into the driver's seat.
"You don't need to come with me," Oliver stated. "I promise I'll bring back your car safely and if it so much as has a scratch on it, I'll buy you a new car."
"Oliver, I am not letting you go into the Glades by yourself," she said. "Do you even know your way around?"
"Of course I know my way around. Tommy and I used to have quite the time in The Glades," Oliver answered.
"Then I guess it's not a surprise to find your sister is trying to have quite the time as well," Felicity quipped.
Oliver opened his mouth to retort but nothing came out. As much as he hated to admit it, Felicity was right. He had done the exact same thing that Thea was doing now. The main difference would probably be that he and Tommy always had each other's back. Oliver reluctantly slid into the passenger seat. It was just as cramped as he remembered from the first time he was in her car.
"Put the address into the GPS," Felicity said nodding to her hand held GPS that sat on the dashboard.
While Felicity backed out of the driveway Oliver concentrated on uploading the address. While he was not tech illiterate, he did have a hard time entering the address. For some reason technology detested him. He would rather use an old fashioned map than these fancy GPS systems. By the time the device accepted the address from him, they were slowly driving along the main boulevard that led to the Glades. A car went speeding by them.
"Can't you drive faster?" he asked annoyed.
"One, I want to get there alive and two, I don't want a speeding ticket," she answered in a brusque tone.
Just as she said that he heard police sirens. A police cruiser emerged from a side street up ahead and went after the car that went flying ahead of them.
"How long do you think they would have kept you waiting while you needed to get to your sister?" she asked him rhetorically.
God he hated how annoying she was. Why did she always have to be right! He clamped his mouth shut and tried to find a comfortable position as he watched the distance to Thea decrease on the GPS. He was vaguely familiar with this part of the Glades. He and Tommy tended to stick to the outskirts of the Glades but this address was in the heart of the Glades where the danger level was high. He did not know what his sister had been thinking. He hoped she had been at one of the haunts that he and Tommy went to but with her this deep she had to have gone somewhere else.
They pulled up in front of a flat house with plywood over the windows and over grown grass in front when the GPS announced they had arrived. Oliver didn't think twice, flying out of the car, up to the door and banging on it with all his strength. It was quite a sturdy door but he supposed if you lived in this place you had to have well-built doors. He glanced back at the car briefly to make sure Felicity was safe and he was horrified to see her stepping out of the car.
"Maybe you should stay in the car," he said to her.
"No," she said locking it and coming towards him.
"It's not safe," he stated as he continued to bang.
"I have a taser and I think I'm the only one between the two of us that's actually armed," she replied.
"I don't need a weapon," Oliver replied, "I am the weapon." Oliver glanced down at her hand to see she did in fact have a taser. Perhaps he should have come a bit more prepared?
The door opened and a shorter guy in his early twenties appeared on the other side. He was dressed in a red hoodie and jeans. "At last!" the guy grumbled. "She's on the couch but did you really have to announce your presence to the entire neighbourhood with all that banging."
Oliver stepped into the house and found his sister on an old mouldy couch. Her eyes were bloodshot, she wasn't focusing on anything and she could barely lift herself upright.
"Ollie," his sister slurred.
"Oliver, I think she needs a hospital," Felicity said concerned.
"No, I'm taking her home," he said picking her up easily. If he took her to the hospital, it would be all over the papers the next day. He was heading to the door when he realized that Felicity was talking to the boy.
"Is there anything we can do for you?" he heard Felicity asking the boy. Her tone was soft and gentle unlike any she had ever used with him.
"Just get her out," the kid said.
"Felicity come on," Oliver insisted.
"Sorry for the inconvenience," she said to the boy before she joined him on the way out.
Oliver spotted a few men on the other side of the road. He knew Felicity was a few feet behind him. "Open the car," he commanded.
The car lights blinked and he knew it was open. She picked up the pace and moved in front of him to open the back door.
"Stay in the back with her," Felicity commanded as she opened the front passenger door. Oliver was momentarily confused until he saw her close the door and scoot across to the driver's seat quickly. He was impressed that she had some level of street smarts to not expose herself to the men on the opposite side of the road.
He concentrated on getting into the tiny car as well and keeping an eye on the group of men that were growing closer to the car. Felicity started the engine and Oliver quickly pulled his feet inside the car before Felicity pulled off. The instant acceleration pressed him back into the seat and the door slammed closed next to him.
"Lock the doors," he instructed. She complied immediately.
Another group of men further down the road stepped into the street from the shadows. Felicity mounted the pavement to avoid them. The jerk of the jump caused Oliver to hit his head on the ceiling while Thea protested that the whole world was spinning rapidly. Once Felicity had passed the men she jumped back onto the road. The motion was too much for Thea and she threw up all over Felicity's back seat and floor mat.
"Is she throwing up?" Felicity asked glancing in the rear-view mirror.
"Yes," Oliver admitted guiltily. "I promise, I'll get your car cleaned. Don't worry about it."
Felicity lowered all four windows, "On the bright side, it's good that she's throwing up. It should get all the excess alcohol out of her system faster."
Oliver nodded dumbly. His sister should never have gotten herself in this position. When she sobered up he was going to have a serious talk with her.
Twenty minutes later Felicity was pulling into the spot next to Oliver's Porsche. She helped Oliver move Thea out of the car and inside the apartment. He was going to put her on the sofa but Felicity stopped him.
"Let's take her to the shower instead," Felicity suggested. "We need to clean her up."
Oliver looked down at his sister and realized that not only had she thrown up all over herself but also peed her pants as well.
Oliver changed directions and moved to the bathroom. Thea could not stand on her own so someone had to get into the shower with her. Felicity noticed that Oliver didn't feel comfortable bathing his sister so she took over from him.
"Just get her into the shower. I will do the rest," she ordered.
"Are you sure? She is my sister but I think she'll be very pissed tomorrow when I tell her I had to bathe her," Oliver explained.
"Then she shouldn't have gotten so drunk tonight," Felicity replied stepping into the shower with Thea. She reached for the hot water knob and turned it on.
"You're going to get wet," Oliver said.
"Thank you Mr. Obvious. I guess it's a good thing that I live twenty feet away. Does she by chance have any clothes here?" Felicity asked.
"No but I can find her something to wear." Oliver closed the door to the bathroom and left them alone.
Felicity was left alone in the shower with Oliver's younger sister. How did she get herself into these positions? Thea was not the first drunk she had helped. When you lived in Las Vegas and your mother worked as a cocktail waitress in one of the big hotels, you saw a lot of drunks. She had helped drunks find their room, find other people, find their wallets, even called 911 for a few too. Drunks she could handle easily what she couldn't figure out was why she seemed to be a magnet for drunks or was it just that everyone else ignored them and she was the only bleeding heart that couldn't.
The first step to dealing with Thea would be to remove her clothes. Felicity looked the girl up and down and cursed softly when she realised Thea was wearing leather pants. Those were going to be incredibly difficult to get off of her. Felicity realised that step one was going to be an exercise in patience.
Twenty minutes later Felicity emerged from the bathroom soaking wet with Thea wrapped in Oliver's large fluffy towel. Felicity made a note to get a towel like that. It was really soft and nice. Oliver was waiting anxiously by the door with clothes in his hand.
"I got a pants and shirt for her," Oliver said holding out the clothes to Felicity.
"I am not struggling with another pair of pants. The shirt should be enough," Felicity commented.
Oliver put the shirt over Thea and Felicity manoeuvred her hands into it and then took the towel away.
"We should get her to drink a bottle of water," Felicity said.
"I have one on my bed stand for her," Oliver said as he picked up Thea and placed her on his bed.
He got her to sit up for a moment and drink the bottle before she passed out on the bed.
"At least one of us gets to sleep tonight," Oliver said with a sigh.
Felicity took the waste basket in Oliver's bathroom and placed it on the ground next to Thea. "In case she needs it."
"Felicity, thank you for your help," Oliver said. "Do you need a coat?"
"A coat?" Felicity asked confused.
"You're soaking wet and its cold outside. I don't want you to get pneumonia," he told her sincerely.
"Oh, I guess a coat would be nice," she agreed.
Oliver went to his closet and pulled out a black pea coat.
Felicity slipped into the coat easily. "I'll bring it back in the morning," Felicity said. It was very warm and comfy.
Oliver nodded.
Felicity walked briskly back to her apartment. She took the coat off and threw it in the dryer for a few seconds and then hung it up by the door to return to Oliver the next day.
Oliver hadn't slept for a second since Felicity left. Instead he paced his bedroom thinking about how his sister had reached to this point in her life. As far as he knew, she was doing great. He hadn't heard any complaints about late partying or drinking from his mother or father. Maybe they didn't know. Maybe Isabel was concealing how bad things were with Thea from him and his mother. Whatever was going on he needed to have a serious conversation with his sister. This path she was on was dangerous and very self destructive.
His alarm clock went off, altering him to the fact that is was 6:00am and time time for his morning exercise routine. Thea stirred a bit but she went straight back to sleep. He had another bottle of water on the bed stand for when she woke up. She was not getting any pain medication. She was going to have to suffer the consequences of her actions.
He decided on no morning job since he didn't want to leave his sister unattended. He would skip straight through to the push-ups, core exercises and burpees. Fifteen minutes into his routine there was a knock at the door. He wasn't expecting anyone. He grabbed a shirt pulled it over his head and answered the door. Felicity was standing there dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and a MIT sweater with his coat, coffee and breakfast.
"Hi, I brought your coat back and breakfast as well," Felicity said holding the items out to him. "How is she doing?"
"Still asleep," he answered as he opened the door wider for her to come in. "She's still in the bedroom you can take a look."
Felicity went off to his room and his cell phone started ringing. It was his mother.
"Hello mom," Oliver greeted her.
"Darling, I just wanted to wish you luck with the big meeting today," she said proudly.
Oliver sighed, there was no way he could go to that meeting with Thea still unconscious.
"How do you know about the investor meeting at 10:00am?" Oliver asked.
"Oliver your father and I may be divorced but I am still the second largest shareholder in the company. I do keep tabs on my investment," she said to him.
He contemplated not telling her that he wasn't going but it was his mother and she would find out. "Something has come up and I don't think I can make the meeting."
"Oliver," there was that disappointed tone he was so accustomed to.
"Mom can we talk about this later," he said. He didn't want to tell her about Thea yet until he found out what was going on.
"No I think we need to talk about this now," his mother said in a firm voice.
He heard Thea's phone start to ring in his bedroom. His mother was busy lecturing him on responsibility and he popped his head into the bedroom. Felicity was adjusting the pillow under Thea's head. Oliver knocked the door to gain her attention and pointed at his sister's phone. 'Answer it,' he mouthed it to her.
'Me,' she whispered back pointing both hands at herself.
'Yes.'
He walked back into the main living area. His mother was still droning on and he had to bite his tongue to tell her that she was neglecting her responsibility to Thea. Felicity came back into the living area and put Thea's phone down on the coffee table.
"Mom," he interrupted her, "I will think about what you said but I have another call on the other line. It's dad."
"Ok darling, I hope you do take what I said to heart," she said.
"I will," he said before hanging up.
"Who was that on the phone," he said nodding his head at Thea's phone.
"Oh some girl called Brittany. Thea's car is at her house. She wants her to pick it up now," Felicity explained.
Oliver scowled, "They left her alone last night. The car could wait."
Felicity chewed on her bottom lip, "If you have to go to work I can watch her for you," she offered.
"Don't you have work?" he questioned.
"I planned on working from home today. My car needs a little attention," she said.
"Shit," Oliver cursed, "I promise your car will be cleaned Felicity. I'll get Thea's car sometime today and you can use that."
"I can't just use her car," Felicity said rejecting the idea immediately.
"You can, it's going to be part of her punishment. Are you sure you can work from home," he asked. "Because you can borrow my car."
"Yes," she replied confidently. "I don't need your Porsche."
"So you know my mother and you can work from home, what do you do?" Oliver asked curiously.
"I wouldn't say that I know your mother. I met her once. My former boss was proposing to his wife on the same night as one of her charity dinners so since he clearly couldn't make it I had to go. That was how I met her," Felicity explained.
"Former boss?" Oliver questioned further.
"Yes I left that company," Felicity answered.
"Where are you now?"
"My own company," she answered proudly.
A second alarm went off to let Oliver know he should be getting ready to leave the apartment now.
"Crap, I have to go soon," he said.
Felicity clapped her hands together, "I'll go get my stuff while you get dressed."
Oliver nodded. He hit the shower and then dressed in his charcoal three piece suit for the meeting. When he opened the door to let Felicity in she stood there staring at him. She was still dressed in the same clothes but she had a laptop bag with her.
"Earth to Felicity," he said waving his hand in front of her face.
"Sorry, my brain occasionally needs to reboot," she said with a slight blush. "It's all done now."
"You sure you're fine," he asked uncertainty.
"Yeap," she said popping the p and nodding her head. "Back to 100% processing power, I'm great," she gave him a thumbs up and ushered him out the door, "Good luck with your meeting. I'll text you when Thea wakes up."
"I didn't give you my number," Oliver from outside his apartment.
"You don't need to. The perks of being a Tech genius," she said with a wink before she closed the door to his apartment on him. Oliver glanced at his watch and realised he really needed to get going.
Oliver arrived at Queen Consolidated underground parking lot at 7:20am. By the time he pulled into his spot and took the elevator up to the executive floor it was 7:28am. He forgoes stopping in his office in favour of heading to his father's office first. Lisa, his father's Executive Assistant, waved him straight in. His father was already seated behind the conference table in his office with all the meeting documents in front of him. When he walked through the door his father glanced at the time and then looked back at the folder. There was no talk about time which Oliver was grateful for. He took the seat opposite his father quickly. He was hoping to get out of there quickly but his father hand another lecture for him.
"You may think it's ok to party all night and come to work but I want you at 100% when you're here," his father said sternly.
Oliver clenched his fists. "I did not party all night."
"Oliver, I'm your father, I know when you're been up all night. I saw this look through your late teens into your early twenties," his father reminded him.
"I was not partying. I couldn't sleep," Oliver lied to protect Thea. He wasn't prepared to tell his father either. Both his parents had failed him when he was growing up and they had yet to learn from their mistakes.
"And I know when you're lying to me Oliver," his father pointed his index finger at him accusingly.
Something in Oliver snapped. "Oh don't pretend to be a good father stating all these things from the past. You were never there!"
"I was there for you Oliver. You shut me out!" Robert shouted back.
"You were never there, just like you weren't there for Thea last night," Oliver spat.
"Thea?" his father asked confused.
Oliver realised his mistake. "Forget it, let's just get on with work," Oliver said.
"No you made a statement. Thea is fine," Robert insisted.
"Really where is she right at this moment?" Oliver asked leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table.
"At school, the driver took her this morning," Robert replied confidently.
"Wrong, she's passed out on my bed," Oliver replied.
Robert showed no reaction, "I'll talk to her."
"How can you talk to her when you don't know what's going on in her life? You let Isabel feed you whatever lies she wants," Oliver said to him.
"Oliver, I will not tolerate you saying disparaging remarks about my wife," Robert snapped angrily.
"Who told you the driver took Thea to school?" Oliver challenged.
"I made an assumption," Robert replied.
"Who's lying now?" Oliver asked leaning back in his seat.
"You set a bad example for your sister," Robert replied.
Oliver threw his hands up in the air. It was always the same thing with his father. Nothing ever changed. "And you're repeating all the mistakes you made with me."
"If she didn't look up to her big brother so much, it would be easier," Robert said exasperated.
Oliver sighed. He knew they could just go on for hours hurling accusations at each other and that wouldn't help Thea. Something had to change. He was learning in business that sometimes you had to make compromises and he decided for Thea he would offer his father and Oliver branch. "After our meeting we will both leave and talk to Thea," Oliver offered.
Robert looked at him seriously, "Six months ago you would have just dropped Thea home and not said a word to me."
"This cycle is getting us nowhere. It's time for a change," Oliver answered.
Robert nodded and then changed topic to meeting prep which went quickly. Oliver returned to his office with half an hour before the investors arrived. He decided to run a google search. He typed Felicity Tech Company into the search bar and pressed enter. Numerous hits loaded.
The first hit was a tech article about the start of Smoak Technologies. Oliver clicked on the link. There was a picture of Felicity at the top of the article with a tall man he knew he had met before. He read the caption on the photo. The man was Dr. Ray Palmer. It was an old photo from the archive when Felicity was the Vice President of Palmer Technologies.
Felicity was Felicity Smoak. She was well accomplished graduating at 21 with two master degrees from MIT before starting work with Dr. Palmer. Last year she struck out on her own with Smoak Technologies, a company dedicated to providing customised cyber security to companies. The article spoke very highly of her. He closed that one and opened the next link which took him to Wayne Enterprises website where there was a picture of Bruce Wayne and Felicity together shaking hands. Bruce had hired Felicity to build all the firewalls for his company. There hadn't been a single breech since she installed the new system.
He stared at the picture. Felicity was dressed in blue dress and was smiling widely at Bruce who was smiling as well but Oliver knew, he was secretly checking Felicity out. Bruce was a jerk. Why was she wasting her smiles on him?
His executive assistant interrupted his research to inform him that the investors had arrived. Oliver closed google, grabbed his meeting documents and headed to the main conference room. His phone pinged with a message from an unknown number.
She's still asleep.
Good luck with your meeting.
F
Oliver's eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. How the hell did she get his private number?
Felicity was busy coding a firewall for a new client when she heard a low groan from the bedroom. The young Queen was waking up. Felicity closed her laptop and placed it on Oliver's coffee table. She stretched her limbs and prepared to face the waking Queen. She glanced at the clock at it was well after 1:00pm.
"Good afternoon," Felicity said as she entered the bedroom.
"Not so loud please," Thea groaned. Her head was under the pillow hiding from the light in the room.
Felicity sat at the edge of the bed, opened the bottle of water and offered it to her. "Water."
"Aspirin would be good," Thea moaned.
"No, you had way too much to drink last night. No medications. You really scared your brother," Felicity told the younger girl.
Thea snorted, "He's done so much worse," she said reaching blindly for the bottle of water. Felicity placed it in her hand and the bottle disappeared under the pillow. "Are you his latest floozy?"
"Thea!" Oliver admonished from the doorway. "Don't be rude to my neighbour. You threw up all over her car and she still helped me. Speaking of which," he said dangling the keys to a BMW in his hand. "
The pillow disappeared quickly and Thea sat up, "You can't give her my car!" The motion must have been too quick because she held her head in her hands. "It hurts," she moaned.
"He can and you're going to see about getting Ms. Smoak's car cleaned," another voice said appearing at the door way. He threw a duffel bag on the bed. "Raisa packed some clothes for you. Get dressed. We need to talk young Lady."
"You told dad!" Thea screeched in a betrayed voice.
"I'll just get going," Felicity said realising she was in the middle of some family drama. She tried to sneak past Oliver but he grabbed her hand and placed the BMW keys in it.
"There's a Big Belly Buster in the kitchen with extra fries and a chocolate milkshake for you," he said.
"You remembered!" Felicity said touched that someone like Oliver Queen would remember her burger order.
"Ms. Smoak it's nice to see you again," Robert Queen said getting her attention.
"Reconsidered my proposal yet?" she asked him in a professional tone.
"We can discuss that another day right now I have more important matters to attend to,"
"Right, I'll just be grabbing my burger and I'll be on my way," Felicity said. She went to the kitchen picked up the bag labelled Felicity and left.
Her car was still parked in front Oliver's apartment next to his Porsche so she wondered where the BMW was. She walked to her apartment and there in front of it was a brand new BMW 5 series.
An: Thanks for reading. :)