Chapter 11: I know you wrote a history of making a mess Misunderstood's an understatement at best

Thea

Thea thought she had got control of her emotions pretty well until she reached the top floor and saw the door to Oliver and Sara's apartment wide open. It was obvious that the person leaving it open had entered in a hurry with little regard or care towards the door. In this case it was her brother, her brother, who would never just leave the door to his home open. She felt her heart speed up again. She could hear a commotion inside the apartment. She tried to get her feet to move, to step inside and make sure Sara was okay, but she was afraid, she was so afraid of what she might find. She took a couple of deep breaths and stepped cautiously across the threshold of her brother's apartment. She slowly walked further inside and followed the sounds that she could hear. She stopped again, right before she could see into the bathroom where Oliver and Sara were.

She bit her lip, closed her eyes and took that last step that led her to the open bathroom door and opened her eyes again at the same time she was releasing the last deep breath she had taken.

What she saw gutted her. Oliver was trying to calm a hysterical Sara, who was sitting on the floor next to the toilet with her back pressed against the wall and her knees pulled tightly to her chest, down. Sara was sobbing and mumbling and trying to both hold on to Ollie and push him away at the same time.

Oliver was kneeling in front of her, whispering to her and softly and carefully caressing her face, hair and arms. It was hard for her to make out what Sara was saying through her sobs. And impossible to understand Oliver. His voice was too quiet to be heard over Sara's crying.

She watched them for a while, not knowing what she should do and feeling utterly helpless until Oliver noticed her.

"Thea, could you bring me a bottle of water? It's in the fridge." He turned away from the woman in front of him for a moment to address her.

"Yeah, sure." She was glad to have a task, something she could do to help. She had felt useless until now. She was so far out of her league right now and had no idea what to do or even how to start processing anything she's just witnessed.

She got the water and rushed back to the bathroom where she opened it and then handed it over to her brother. She stepped back again and gave them space as soon as Oliver took hold of it. She had noticed Sara flinch when she stepped into their personal space.

She watched how Oliver slowly held it out to Sara and how she took a couple of sips and then abruptly took hold of Oliver's forearms, looking him straight in the eyes before she turned her head and chest away from him to throw the water back up into the toilet next to her. Oliver being right there, holding her hair back and rubbing her back soothingly. Sara suddenly started to weep again while dry heaving. She sounded so desperate. God, this was breaking her heart. She felt like crying herself. She had seen the look of panic that had crossed Ollie's face for a moment when Sara had to throw the water back up. He was worried, more than worried he was anxious, close to panicking actually.

"Thea can you call Caitlin Snow and ask her if she can get Barry to bring her here now? Tell her what's going on and that Sara's the friend I told her about." Oliver was holding his phone out to her, turning his attention back to the woman between his legs, draped over the toilet, the moment he was done with his request.

"Yeah, of course." Thea took the phone from his hand, reluctantly left the bathroom and walked towards the living room while searching through her brother's contacts looking for Caitlin Snow.

She reached the living room around the same time she found the number. She took a deep breath, threw a glance back towards the bathroom. From where she could still hear Oliver's voice, she couldn't make out the words though, and she could also still hear Sara sobbing. She felt her heart constrict and her eyes tear up. She took another couple of breaths and pulled herself together. Sara needed her to do this. Oliver trusted her to do this. He trusted her to help him take care of Sara. Her shaking hands pressed on Caitlin's name and moved the phone to her ear, waiting for the other woman to pick up. Praying that she would. She needed her to. Sara needed her to. Oliver trusted her to get the Doctor here.

"Hi Caitlin, this is Thea, Thea Queen. I'm sorry for calling you this late, but Oliver asked me to. He said to tell you it was concerning the friend he contacted you about… yeah, well I guess she's having a… really bad panic attack or like an episode because of her PTSD… yeah, she's been throwing up for a while… I'm not sure… maybe 30 minutes or an hour?... yeah, no she's crying really hard… well, I guess almost hysterically… Ollie's with her, trying to calm her down… we tried to get her to drink some water but she just threw it right back up… yeah I think it's not the first time… I don't know… Caitlin… wait, I don't know, I don't know the answer to any of that. Ollie told me to call you and ask you to get Barry to run you here. He's really scared for her and he can answer all of these questions. Please Caitlin. She needs help, like the medical kind. Okay… okay, yeah, I tell him. Thank you, thank you so much! I text you the address. Thank you!" Thea felt herself sag in relief. Caitlin was coming.

She went back to the bathroom to let Oliver know.

Dinah

She was stroking Sara's hair while thinking about everything she had learnt in the last couple of hours, from the moment Oliver had called and woken her up in the middle of the night. He had called to ask her to come to Starling, Star City, because Sara needed her. Because Sara had asked for her. Her baby… her beautiful but broken baby who had fallen asleep with her head resting on her chest after crying for an hour… just like she used to when she was a little girl. Oh, her poor baby. How much more could she take?

She was still trying to wrap her head around the knowledge she had gained. Sara was pregnant. With Oliver's child. The baby had not been planned, and they were giving it up for adoption. Because they felt they weren't fit to be parents. Not with everything they were struggling with emotionally. That it was too much, and the baby was another burden for them to carry on shoulders that were already carrying too much.

She could understand that.

Still, a part of her felt that this baby might be a blessing in disguise. That it might actually help them if they let it.

She knew that both Sara and Oliver didn't see it that way right now. Their position on it was clear and understandable given their situation, but still… they might change their minds on the matter should they ever manage to improve their mental health and see themselves the way other people did.

If they could only see that they were genuinely good people. That their current pain was not a life sentence. They would always carry some of the trauma they had endured with them, but that didn't mean that their lives had to revolve around it. They could have a more or less normal, joyful life. That they would be great parents. All they needed to do was believe it themselves.

Laurel had always been the more driven one and Sara, her free-spirited, wild Sara, had always been the more nurturing one. She was the one who enjoyed baking and learning how to cook from their grandmothers and Raisa, wanting to be a doctor to save lives and take care of people. Not to forget all those years that she had spent babysitting Thea and every other kid that needed a sitter.

Sara loved children.

Sara had always loved children.

Her baby used to joke that she wanted a boatload full of them. This was why the current situation was breaking her heart even more than it would have otherwise.

Sara loved children, she was great with children. And children loved her.

There was absolutely no possibility that Sara would be a terrible mother.

Just like she knew that Oliver would make an exceptional father. She had seen him with Thea growing up. And sometimes he would end up at their place while Sara was babysitting and help her out, or play with her and the kids while waiting for Laurel to finish her homework or be done with studying.

She knew that they would be amazing parents and their child couldn't do any better.

But she would not try to change their minds. It was their choice. It needed to be their choice.

Dinah also knew that her opinion didn't matter. No one's did. Only Sara and Oliver's. It needed to be their choice if they should end up deciding to keep the baby after all it needed to be because it was what they wanted.

Because they believed that they were their child's best choice.

Making them keep the baby while they didn't believe that it was the best choice for it would put them up to failure from the get go. Even if it was only in their minds. It would lead to years of self-doubt and them questioning every decision they make and always coming up lacking. Their child would become another burden instead of the blessing and joy it was supposed to be.

Raising a child was an arduous task. They needed to deem themselves up to it. It didn't matter that everyone who knew them believed that they were and would do great. If they weren't in the right mental state and felt their mental health was not up to taking care of another life, they shouldn't be taking care of said life. The mental health issues that came from the severe trauma, that had been inflicted upon them, could be treated. But only if they were willing to. If they wanted to. And she had to agree with their choice until they were ready to try to work through their pain and trauma raising a child was not something they should do or were up to doing.

Did she want her grandchild in her life? Of course she did.

But she understood where Sara and Oliver were coming from. She was a teacher; she saw the effect being raised by unfit parents had on children.

Not that she believed that they were unfit, far from it.

Dinah looked at her sleeping daughter again and remembered part of the conversation they've had shortly before Sara fell asleep.

"Ollie and I never meant for Laurel to get hurt mom. I swear. It was the last thing we ever wanted to do, but still it seems no matter what we do, we always end up hurting her. I know we hurt her when we got back together when I first came home. I know it was selfish but Ollie and I, we made a promise, that we would give us a shot and find out what it was between us, should we ever get off the island. We owed it to each other to find out. And I had thought he was dead, and I missed him so much during those years I was away. And now, now we're going to hurt her again, because I know. I know that her learning that I'm pregnant with Ollie's child will hurt her and hurt her bad, and I never meant to do that. I never meant for any of this to happen. I swear. I don't even know how to tell her about the baby even less that we are not keeping it. This is all she's wanted for years, all she's ever wanted and now I have it and I'm going to give it up, just like I did when I left him to go back to the League. I've never… I've never told anyone that, but Ollie was ready to commit to me. He had asked me to move in with him and I swear there's nothing I've wanted more in that moment but… We needed help. We needed the League, and I knew they would ask for my life in return and there was no leaving this time around. So, I broke up with him. Because I knew he wouldn't let me go if I told him my plan. But I knew that Ollie would never try to make me stay if he felt like it wasn't what I wanted. Ollie offered me what Laurel had so desperately wanted and begged for, for years, and he kept on denying her. And I just threw it away. If she knew… on top of all of this… she'll hate me. And she has every right to. I deserve it. Mom, I don't know how to do this. I can't lose her. I can't lose my sister again, but I don't know how any of this could play out without me losing her. Why do I keep hurting her? How can I make this right?"

She had started crying again after this until she fell asleep.

And yes, Sara was right, this would hurt Laurel.

She still remembered the conversation she had with Laurel after she had found out about Oliver's son. And it hadn't just been the knowledge that Oliver had gotten another woman pregnant while they had been in a supposedly committed relationship. Laurel had long since accepted the fact that Oliver had not been faithful to her. What had hurt her almost more had been the fact that Oliver had a child that wasn't hers.

That reaction and feeling was understandable.

Laurel had spent her teenage years and early twenties dreaming and later on believing that she would be Mrs. Oliver Jonas Queen, and the only children he would have would be the ones she bore him. So, learning that he had a child with another woman, from a time when she had still been fully convinced that this belief would be her future, had cut her deep.

Learning now that her sister was carrying his second child would open scars to wounds that had only recently and barely healed.

Dinah knew that Laurel, just like Quentin, would never be able to understand the choice Sara was making. Why she would give up her child. But she disagreed with Sara's fear, she doubted that Laurel would hate her but she probably wouldn't be able to understand how and why Sara chose to give up Oliver's child. A child Laurel once desperately wanted. That lack of understanding would probably lead to friction between her daughters. It might even turn into a fight. But she knew that they would eventually work it out. They always did because they loved each other too much not to.

Dinah sometimes wondered how her daughters had managed to end up in a situation like this. They were like night and day. Couldn't be any more different if they tried, and yet, they just had to fall for the same boy. She naturally could see Oliver's appeal, back when they were kids and even now with all the baggage he had gained over the years. He was an exemplary man, with a good heart who seemed to be completely devoted to her youngest daughter. It was almost funny how neither of them were aware of it.

She sometimes felt Oliver had made his choice the moment he had asked Sara to join him on his father's yacht whether or not he knew it. What Sara had told her about Oliver asking her to move in with him before she left, only seemed to confirm her belief.

Yes, the knowledge that Oliver had been willing to commit to Sara would hurt Laurel, should she ever learn about it.

Just like Sara's affair with Oliver, all those years ago, had.

She still blamed herself for letting Sara go.

The rational part of her brain reminded her that Sara had been nineteen, a legal adult, and nothing short of chaining her to the banister would've kept her from going.

She had asked her not to do this to her sister. But what was she supposed to do or say after Sara told her that she was in love and had to follow her heart? Just like she, herself had done when it came to Quentin. Was she supposed to tell her that following her heart was right in some cases and not in others?

Should she have told one daughter that her feelings didn't matter because of her other daughter? Tell Sara that she had to hide and deny the way she felt because Laurel would get hurt? Tell her that her sister's feelings were more important than her own? That her feelings weren't valid because they were towards her sister's boyfriend?

Oh, she knew. She had known for a while that her baby had a crush on Oliver. She had also seen how devastated she had been when he started to date Laurel. It took her a while, but she got over it eventually, brushed it off, put a big smile on and pretended not to care. Or so she had thought.

She had also taken notice how the way Oliver interacted with her had slightly changed after Sara started college. She had made nothing of it until after she found out that Sara was going on a weeks long trip with him, because he asked her to. That's when she realized that Oliver had tended to show up at their place more often whenever Sara was home from college.

Dinah sighed, bent down to kiss her daughter's crown and pull her a little closer and the blanket a little tighter around her, before closing her eyes, it had been a long night, driving down here, spending hours alone on the road while worrying about her youngest daughter…

Thea

Sara was pregnant. Sara was pregnant. Sara was pregnant… with her brother's baby.

Sara and Oliver were having a baby.

Thea tried to wrap her head around the new information she had just gathered, listening to Ollie's conversation with Caitlin.

Thea tumbled on the couch in the living room.

"Sara is pregnant."

"Yeah, she is." Quentin's quiet confirmation startled her out of her thoughts. She had completely forgotten that he had arrived shortly after Caitlin and has been sitting in the living room pretty much since. To stay out of the way and let her help his daughter.

"How... how did you know? I mean, you don't look surprised." She could not understand how Quentin was this calm. It was not like him, not after a revelation like that.

"I figured it out that afternoon at Laurel's. Sara's always been a lot like Dinah. This is no different. But yeah, quite the shock, isn't it?" He was giving her a tired yet understanding smile.

She smiled back at him and they both went back to their own thoughts, waiting until there was anything they could do.

Thea picked up the book lying on the coffee table after a while. She needed something to distract herself. Not that a pregnancy book was the right thing to keep her thoughts away from the subject of Sara's pregnancy… but it was the only thing lying around...

Thea looked up from the pregnancy book she had been flipping through to keep herself occupied, when she heard footsteps.

Oliver was walking into the living room and sitting down on the couch next to her, leaning his head back for a moment before dragging his hands over his face. He looked like hell. Completely exhausted and drained. She placed her hand on his arm.

"How's Sara?" Quentin broke the silence from his place in the armchair.

"Better. Dinah's with her and Caitlin is checking her vitals again, and she just changed her IV to make sure her body gets enough fluids and glucose I think... I'm not… I don't know the medical stuff and didn't understand half of what was said… you'll have to ask Caitlin if you want to know what exactly she's doing or giving her. Sara understands it though, medical stuff and everything science has always been her thing, not mine." Oliver sounded as exhausted as he looked. His focus was entirely on Quentin while answering his question. He was almost defensive… what had happened between the two of them last night? Caitlin had sent Oliver away to get some fresh air, and she had stayed with Sara and Caitlin after the former gave Ollie her go-ahead.

She knew now that her brother had also used that time to call Sara's mom. But something had happened between the two men, and she had the feeling it had been nothing good.

"How bout I go for a pizza run? I think everyone could use some food." Quentin took the information her brother had given him in, but for some reason decided not to comment on it. Sara's father didn't wait for an answer before getting up and leaving the apartment.

"What was…?" She started but stopped when Oliver started to talk at the same time and nodded towards him to let him continue.

"Thea… could you not… I have to ask you… please don't tell Laurel about Sara's pregnancy. Look, I know this puts you in an uncomfortable position but Sara and I want to tell her. She deserves to hear it from us. Please." Oliver was fidgeting, and she realized he wasn't comfortable asking her to keep this immense piece of information from the woman who had taken her in and she considered to be a sister. And she really didn't like it. Laurel should know. Laurel needed to know. But most importantly Laurel deserved to know. She should have been the first person they told. After everything… after their history… they shouldn't have kept this from her, shouldn't keep it from her any longer now.

"You're right. She deserves to hear it from you. She would've deserved to be the first person to know, Ollie. I won't say anything, but you need to talk to her and soon and you need to do it alone if Sara's not feeling better or up to it in the next couple of days. Is this why Quentin's angry at you?" She didn't like it, but she did agree with him, Laurel deserved to hear the news from her sister and Oliver.

"Thank you, Thea. I'm sorry I put you in the middle of this. It's part of it, and he has every right to be angry at me." Her brother gave her a grateful look.

"A few days, Ollie. That's all you get from me. I can't speak for Quentin and Dinah, but I'm sure they don't agree with this either. What you are doing is wrong. And I get the two of you have your reasons for not telling anyone, but that doesn't make this right. And if I or Quentin or Dinah tell her, she'll at least still hear it from family. Just think about how she would feel if she heard it from Caitlin or Barry? You and Sara have to stop keeping things from her. You always do the same thing. You keep stuff from Laurel, she finds out after everyone else does, which hurts her and leads to her lashing out and you end up right in the middle. And we both know you always chose Sara in those situations, which I get to some extent. And then the three of you have a huge argument and avoid each other until one of you comes to their senses and apologizes. You need to break the cycle. And you can only do that by stopping to keep things, like Sara's pregnancy, from her." Thea was pretty much done with the Laurel, Ollie, Sara drama. She got it, she did, but it was simple to solve, well some of it was. Ollie and Sara just needed to stop keeping Laurel out of the loop. Period!

Not that Laurel was innocent when it came to the matter of sharing crucial information like having used the Lazarus Pit to resurrect her sister, but this was about Oliver and Sara. Thea knew Laurel had forgiven them and moved forward but she also knew that the subject of Oliver and Sara in a romantic sense was still painful for her and then keeping it from her, a sore subject with the possibility to turn real ugly, real fast.

"You're right. You're absolutely right. We just… look… the last thing Sara and I ever wanted to do is hurt Laurel. And I know how this sounds coming from me, but… we never meant to hurt her. I can't even explain just how much she means to me and Sara. Which makes this so hard. We never want to hurt her or be the cause of her pain. But we know that this will hurt her. Even if she'll never admit it to us. We know her and we know how much this will hurt her. And we just… how do you tell someone you love something you know will cause them pain? I know how much learning about William hurt her. How can I knowingly cause her even more pain? All I ever seem to do is cause Laurel pain." She paid extra attention, studying her brother while he was talking. This was hard for him, really hard. Just talking about hurting Laurel seemed to cause him pain. She felt bad having this conversation with him now. She knew he hadn't slept last night, that he had been worried sick and put all of his energy into helping Sara. Had he eaten anything at all in the last eighteen hours?

Maybe the pizza run was actually a peace offering on Quentin's part.

"I don't know, Ollie. But I know it'll hurt her even more if she hears it from someone else. Look, I don't know what exactly is going on between Sara and you, besides the having a baby part, and it's none of my business, so I'm not gonna pry. I'd be happy to listen if you decided you want to tell me, but if you don't, that's fine too. But I think maybe you should tell Laurel and explain the situation. It might ease her pain." She was trying to help him, to maybe ease some of his burden and worry, but it didn't seem to work.

"Thank you, but I doubt it will. But you're right, she deserves the entire truth." He leaned his head back again and closed his eyes for a moment, moving his hands across his face.

"Why don't you go lie down until Quentin comes back with the pizza? You must be exhausted." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him worriedly.

"I'm fine." Why did his answer not surprise her?

"No, you're not. Go lie down. I'll get you when Quentin's back with the food or if Sara wakes up. I promise." She got up took his hand and dragged him off the couch and pushed him towards the living room door and his bedroom. He was going to lie down, whether he wanted to or not.

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