'I have no notion of loving people by halves. It is not in my nature. My attachments are always excessively strong.'

Jane Austen

She walks slowly whenever she goes to them. There is no need to hurry, they're not going anywhere. That's the one good thing about dead people, supposedly: you can count on them o always be there.

Thea sighs as she kneels in front of the tombstones, cleans the fallen leaves from the tops, takes away the dried flowers and puts in the fresh ones. Its white roses for her father this time, and colorful wild flowers for Oliver. She always brings them flowers that remind her of the day she had, and today Thea spent the morning with her mother and the rest of the day with Felicity.

With a deep sigh she sits cross-legged on the ground and plays with the blades of grass a little, allowing the weight of the sadness and solitude in her chest to swell and fill her from the tips of her hair to the tips of her toes before she lets it go.

"Hey guys. Hey…" for a few moments she is lost and words escape her. But that's ok, she doesn't have to pretend here with them. They can wait. They always do.

'Start small.', Felicity had told her a long time ago. 'Start with something you're happy about. Something that would make him smile. Something you feel. It's ok to feel too much… just as it's ok not to feel anything. Your grief is your own; nobody can tell you what to do with it.'

Thea was a lot more conscious now of how much those words had cost her. Felicity and Thea had very different ways of dealing with loss and grief. Opposite ways almost. Thea needed to hold on, to come back over and over. Felicity… Felicity survived differently.

"So… Mom and Walter are disappointed I'm not going to college, but they approve of me taking a year if I'm gonna be working. Mom wanted me to get an internship at QC, can you believe it? Like that'll ever happen!" Thea relaxed as words started pouring. And the more she spoke, the easier it was to imagine she was talking to her brother and father again, and not their graves. "No offence dad, I love the company and all, but I wanted to take this year off for me, and I want to find some kind of… some kind of independence, away from being a Queen and all that. Working at QC would be kinda counterproductive to that, so mom is gonna have to learn how to curb the control-freak tendencies."

And what better way to assure that then to go work for someone on whom her mother had absolutely no control over at all. Thea smiles ruefully as she remembered the last exchange between Felicity and her mother. Tense was an understatement.

"Mom likes Felicity even less now. She acts like Felicity stole me away or something, which is nuts, but whatever. Mom lost that right years ago, seriously. She has no right to resent Felicity for being a better parent to me than my actual living parent! Jesus, talk about hypocrisy." Thea looks down; rips out the grass tangled around her fingers, feeling her resentment simmer. And then the sadness settles. "I dunno what it is between them, cause neither will tell me anything. It's like they think I'm stupid or something. Whatever."

Thea takes a deep breath, shakes her hair out of her face.

"Honestly I'm not that surprised. They're so different. Mom is used to brushing nasty things in corners; Felicity drags them center-stage and gives them a piece of her mind in her Loud Voice. It makes for interesting Thursday night dinners sometimes, when I can actually blackmail your girl to coming over, Ollie."

Thea chuckled, shaking her head. She was grateful for few things in her life and knowing Felicity Smoak was one of them for sure. She and Laurel and Tommy, now that he was back, were her tether to her brother and Thea had held on to them with every ounce of strength she had. And it might sound strange, but she loved Felicity precisely because the blonde had absolutely sub-zero tolerance for Thea's bullshit.

A slow smile creeps on Thea's lips at the thought.

"I kinda think that's why you liked her too, isn't it Ollie?" she says softly, a whisper that gets lost in the breeze. But then a happier thought intrudes. "Oh, by the way, Felicity is all things spicy and nice, but she's one hell of a slave-drive at work." And Thea chuckles, because she remembers suddenly that she is happy these days. "Laurel was worse! So glad to be out of Community hours at CNRI by the way. Totally pulled a you with that DUI there Ollie, but it kinda wasn't my fault, in case you don't remember…"

It had been the moment her life changed. In retrospect, Thea could see it clearly.

"I love it though… It's nice to be trusted like that. She honestly believes I can do anything I want to, you know, and I really don't want to let her down." And she didn't. for the first time since her brother and father's funerals, Thea was starting to grasp at what it meant to be alive, and to be happy again. She was starting to find out that she was a helluva lot stronger than she'd known (and people like Tommy and Felicity and Laurel acted as if they'd known it all along, and that truly felt like love).

"I'm really doing better these days guys. I'm happy…" And even though she was smiling and meant ever word, two twin tears finally dropped from her eyes and made their way down her cheeks. "I miss you. I miss you Ollie, I miss you."

Come back to me…

But it had been a long time since Thea had last wished that. She hadn't lost hope, but she had decided to take a leaf off Felicity's book on that: 'Keep hoping, but don't let it smother your life. It's no use that way.'

What Felicity hadn't said was that it would feel so much like betrayal… and so much like freedom, too.