The Interview

There were worse things than taking out the needle and thread and stitching one of Oliver's wounds from a night out fighting bad guys.

Felicity watched the live interview from her smart phone at work with her Bluetooth headset. Oliver had agreed to appear on the daytime talk show to promote the Glades Foundation, a major charity effort Oliver was backing to help with the reconstruction. The network had insisted that Oliver Queen be the spokesperson for the interview.

One of the many things the network wouldn't budge on was to air the broadcast live. She warned Oliver about the host of the show; Pamela Rosen. Pamela Rosen was known for what the network called edgy interviews. Felicity saw it as intrusive and rude. The lack of empathy Ms Rosen showed her guests was legendary. One in particular had been the mother and father of a child who had gone missing ten years ago. Felicity remembered seeing other interviews with the parents on different news networks at the time, they were speaking on behalf of a child find organization and hoping to renew awareness into their own child's disappearance. As soon as the show began, the discourse was more of an interrogation than an interview as Pamela Rosen asked them over and over again what they would have done differently the day of their daughter's disappearance, suggesting there was negligence on their part. I can imagine how overcome with guilt you must be, Pamela had said.

"Oliver, the woman is a vampire. Or ghoul. Or something nasty." Felicity tried to warn him.

"I think I can hold my own against a daytime talk show host." He answered. "The Glades Foundation needs the exposure and they only way they'd talk about the charity was if I did the interview personally."

And so the interview began.

The host, Pamela Rosen introduced Oliver. They began with a little bit of small talk. "This is a serious endeavor for you. You should be careful or you might lose your youthful carefree public image."

"I haven't felt young and carefree for a long time." Oliver admitted.

Ms Rosen asked about the charity work and the role of his company in the efforts.

"My intention is to assist in the work the charities are doing, but Queen Consolidated does not hold a leadership role. Our assistance is mainly with the administration, supervised and directed by their own people."

"And what kind of compensation is your company receiving for their involvement?"

"No compensation. With the administration expenses covered, all donations go directly to the rebuilding effort." Oliver explained.

"Do you feel a sense of guilt and responsibility for your family's role in the tragedy?"

"It's the right thing to do. QC is only one of many businesses involved in the efforts. A full list is available on the website."

"You have your own property interests in the glades, don't you?"

"My club, the Verdant. It isn't in the destruction zone, but we had a lot of structural damage. I'm handling those repairs independently. There are other properties, those are also being covered at our own expense. The charity is concerned with the families who lost their homes and the small businesses who don't have the capital to rebuild. It's about rebuilding the community."

"Where were you that night?"

"This isn't about me."

"You lost a friend." The screen behind Pamela Rosen flashed with pictures of the devastation in the Glades. The way the chairs were situated at angles with the screen directly behind Ms Rosen. Oliver's view was aimed directly at the screen. The slides were pictures everyone was already familiar with. Broken buildings, broken people. And then it flashed to a photo of Tommy. It was an old photo, Tommy was dressed casual, smiling, clearly on his way to a night out on the town with a young Oliver beside him.

"There isn't anyone who didn't lose a friend or a loved one that night." Oliver deflected.

Felicity felt her stomach turn. She logged off her work computer and grabbed her purse. It didn't matter that it was the middle of the day, she worked more with Oliver directly these days than in the IT department and she didn't care what her supervisor had to say about leaving early.

"And you are no stranger to loss. You lost your Father and your girlfriend that night of the storm. How difficult was that for you, finding yourself suddenly alone?"

The image changed again, an image of his Father standing on the Queen's Gambit.

Pamela Rosen didn't bother waiting for a response. "Were you aware of the massive search and rescue mission that took place after the Queens Gambit was lost?"

Felicity could see Oliver's eyes fixed on the image on the screen.

"Of course, I assumed there would be. Once or twice I saw something in the distance. It could have been anything."

"It must have been difficult, knowing that rescue was so close and yet having no ability to signal for help."

Bitch. Felicity hailed a cab and gave the directions to the network.

"I don't think that's what it was. The ocean is a big place. But, that's in the past. We have a lot of people in our own city in need of rescue, right now, and that is what the Glades Foundation is focusing on."

"Tell me, what was it like the moments before the yacht was lost? Were you aware of what was happening?"

"I came here to talk to you about the charity effort." Oliver answered.

"Was it structural damage or the storm that sank the yacht?"

"I'm not here to talk about that." Oliver answered.

The signs weren't obvious, but Felicity saw them. His eyes narrowed slightly, he breathed more deeply.

"Five years is such a long time to be away from your friends and family. It must be doubly heartbreaking now to lose your mother and your best friend so soon after getting back. How does it feel, to know that your mother was involved in the disaster? Have you had any contact with her?"

Oliver smiled his best fake smile. "In the Glades, there is a lot of work to be done, and crime has only increased. But there are a lot of businesses and people lined up to help the recovery, and it isn't too late to turn things around. The major challenge lays in identifying where everyone's best talents are best suited. Log onto the website and fill out the form available, and you will be contacted."

The picture on the screen changed to that of a shadowed island with a rocky shore. She saw Oliver focus on the image.

"I have heard that you weren't alone on the island as it was first assumed.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Who was with you? Did someone other than yourself survive the wreck? Why were you alone when you were rescued?"

The next image was something Felicity hadn't seen before and she wondered how the network got a hold of it. It was Oliver. It must have been right after his rescue. He had long hair and a beard. His head was down and a blanket was wrapped around his shoulders.

Pamela Rosen didn't even bother to push for a response to her previous questions, his reaction was apparently all she was hoping for. "How did it feel to finally be rescued, to be on that fishing boat and know that your ordeal was finally over?"

Oliver didn't answer.

Felicity tried to keep herself from nagging the cab driver to drive faster

The next pictures were snapshot photos of what looked like foreign hospital records. A close up of a brutal web of scaring that Felicity recognized from his shoulder, another image of the burns on his low back. Another picture of him standing in a dingy hallway wearing faded and worn patient scrubs, staring slightly left of the camera. In the picture he looked lost. He looked every part of the traumatized victim that Pamela wanted to portray him as. Beside it was a photo of him before the island, a handsome boy walking on the beach with friends. No scars, no tattoos. The contrast was jarring. "Twenty percent of your body is covered in scars. Second degree burns on your back. Broken bones that never properly healed. You suffered greatly on the island, didn't you? Did you ever consider giving up?"

Felicity didn't know the Oliver of before. She remembered seeing his picture now and then in the news but hadn't paid attention to the gossip magazines.

There had to have been something special about him even back then. He survived. Felicity thought she would have liked to have known the younger Oliver who smiled so easily. In just about every pre-island picture he was laughing. The cab stopped, she paid, and didn't bother waiting for the change.

"You have never spoken publicly about your ordeal, clearly there is more to the story. What was it like there? What kind of things happened to you?"

The contrasting pictures of Oliver before and after stayed on the screen.

Oliver finally spoke. His voice was low, but clear. "The time I spent on the island isn't something I talk about and I don't appreciate your focus on my past. All it does is deflect from the very important issue I did come here to discuss. The Glades Foundation is doing work now, to make life better for the people of this city."

"I'm sorry Mr Queen." Pamela Rosen said sweetly. "I thought, as a disaster victim yourself, you would want to speak out to support other victims. Victims of tragedies like what happened in the Glades. Deep psychological damage often leaves it's victims unable to speak about their experiences. Let's talk about the Glades Foundation."

Oliver looked from the screen to Pamela, his expression still cool and controlled. Expressionless. " Come out and help rebuild. If you have a construction company or food or supplies or money, or time you would like to donate, call QC, we have a dedicated line for support efforts. All money goes directly to the effort." He smiled briefly at Pamela. "Thank you for taking the time to have me on your show." He said easily and pinched the clip to remove the wired microphone from his collar.

Pamela smiled for the camera. "After this break we will be speaking with survivors of the Glades disaster."

Felicity turned off her phone. There was a crowd bunched up around the front doors of the office building. Paparazzi. She wasn't the only one to see the interview. The media had been trying to pin Oliver down for weeks to get his reaction on the Glades and Moira's arrest.

She flashed her QC employee badge to the security, claimed to be Mr. Queen's assistant, and was granted entry. The security guard directed her towards the elevators, but she looked at them only briefly before searching for the emergency staircase. She cast a quick glance around to ensure no one was watching, then quickly headed down the hall and through the fire doors and onto a small landing of bright florescent lighting, bland gray walls, and chipping yellow handrails. She sat on the bottom step and waited. The sound of footsteps echoed from above and she smiled to herself. Oh yeah, she knew him.

The original plan had been that Oliver would stay and meet with director of the network to discuss a possible documentary special featuring the Glades Foundation that QC would partially finance. Cold chance in hell that would happen now.

The footsteps grew louder, then slowed and stopped. Oliver looked down at her for a few seconds before leaning against the wall.

He wasn't even winded. Neither saying a word. Felicity knew this script, they've played it out many times before. Somewhere in his experiences on the island Oliver learned that the only way to deal with stress was to bury it deep and suppress any sign of weakness. She considered it her duty as his friend to break that cycle.

"I didn't know you were here." He said eventually.

"I wasn't."

"So, you saw the interview."

She nodded.

"I'm fine. It's not like-"

"Like being broadsided by questions about your experiences bother you?" She interrupted.

His expression hardened. "You don't need to be here."

Oliver reached for the door, but she jumped up and grabbed his wrist before he walked away. He could have broke the connection in a heartbeat. But he didn't.

"Wait. Paparazzi have the building surrounded."

He stood very still. "There are always paparazzi."

"And they've been given enough fodder for one day, you don't have to give them more."

"What do you want me to do? Hide in a stairwell?"

"Diggle is going to pull the car around to the back." She let go of his hand and sat back down, and he sat beside her. "I knew Pamela Rosen was a horrible person, but I didn't know she would be that awful."

"All this does it take focus away from the foundation." He answered.

"You were set up. The foundation was desperate for exposure, the only way the network would talk about the Foundation was if you did the interview yourself. It took planning to set up the photo's they had."

"I didn't even know those pictures existed. I don't remember them being taken."

She pulled out her phone and sent a quick text while he watched. "John is going to pick us up at the service entrance in ten minutes. That gives me just enough time to do this." Her thumbs raced over the touch screen again.

"Do what?"

"Arrows aren't the only way to fight injustice." Felicity said lightly and continued without looking up. It took a ton of effort on her part to keep her face serious and wait for Oliver to ask instead of rambling on and explaining it anyway.

"What?" He finally asked.

And it took even more effort not to tell him even after he did ask. "You'll see. No one messes with my friends and gets away with it." After a minute she turned off the screen and dropped the phone back into her purse.

"I'm glad you're on my side."

"Always." She tried to keep her voice light to hide real weight of exactly what she meant, but the way his eyes met hers and lingered just a little longer than normal made her wonder if he saw it regardless. "Let's go, Diggle will be waiting."

The moment was over. They found exit was at the back of the building. It was close to the staircase and out of sight of the main lobby and Diggle was already there waiting.

Please review and let me know what you think. (I based the story on a real interview because the horribleness of the interviewer stuck with me for a long time, and the resilience and tenacity of her guest to stay on topic and not be lured into something she wasn't willing to talk about was awesome... some tv personalities really are this horrible.) -Rat