Far From Paradise
Broken Worlds
. . .
Note: Thanks for all the love on the first chapter, everyone! I'm so glad that you're enjoying this story, and while this second chapter had been a little delayed, hopefully it will be worth it, and I promise that the third chapter will be up much sooner. Also, you know how I gave this BS story about his story being four chapters? I don't have any idea what I was even thinking—ballparking what I'm looking at now, it's going to be a lot closer to seven.
. . .
Thea had been sure that she was broken, that her life had splintered so badly that it was utterly beyond disrepair. The only thing that she had going for her, she concluded, was that when something broke—well, that was it.
Broken is broken, it can't get any worse.
Again, she was wrong. As she watched another crime analyst, and reporter, and some idiot lawyer analyze her mother, discuss their family, talk about what a monster her mother was…she took the remote and flipped to another channel. She understood what her mother did, she understood that there were over a hundred people dead, numerous more that had been injured because of this insane plot that her parents and a few of their friends had to "cleanse" the Glades. But it was still her mother, it was still her mother, the same woman who held her when she cried and was the only parent that she had left.
Maybe the only person she had left, she thought with a stab of hopelessness.
It was her mom, and it was something that…as much as she wanted to…hate her—she couldn't.
And here she was, alone and abandoned again. She hated Oliver for leaving that day on the yacht with their dad. Thea had hated the both of them for going. They were always going places, and she was always left behind. Sometimes it was like her dad and Oliver had this special little club that she just wouldn't ever get to be a member of.
As she flipped the channel, finding someone on MSNBC talking about their failing industry, about how Oliver Queen had failed the masses who depended on him while the stocks plummeted—
It's so easy with that silver spoon in his mouth, to forget that there are people out here who are truly suffering.
Thea threw the remote control, flinching slightly as it made contact with the TV and bounced off, while the brassy redhead continued to berate her brother's failures.
While she continued to talk about the spoilt golden boy, destroying the fortunes of everyone who'd made the mistake of having faith in him, she finally lost it.
I mean, I've lost everything else…so why not this too? Thea thought. Mom, Tommy, Walter, Oliver…Roy.
Thea squeezed her eyes shut as she thought of her boyfriend. She'd been through the whole spectrum of human emotion over the last few days; through Oliver disappearing, Roy never returning, the sheer and utter agony of Tommy's funeral, and her mother's indictment.
Walter's phone call wasn't even the low of her week, so it hardly should have bothered her.
"Thea, I'm so sorry." Walter said, "But you understand why I can't return."
"Yeah, I know. Of course." Thea nodded her head as she answered him. "It's fine. I mean, I'm fine."
"My lawyers have told me that if I return to the states, I would be compelled to testify against Moira." Walter said, pausing for a moment before going on, "You'll be fine with Oliver won't you? The two of you are doing fine, aren't you?"
"Oh yeah," Thea lied with a grim smile.
Right now, her brother's disappearance might be the best kept secret in the industry.
"I know that he wanted me to return, but that would be the worst thing for your mother." Walter told her, "You know that if you need to get out of Starling City, if you want to leave all you have to do is come here. Your room is still waiting for you in the brownstone."
It would be like Oliver, at least like the old Oliver to do that. Anything to run away from his responsibilities and wallow in his misery. Well, you missed a step this time big brother.
"I need to be here, Walter." Thea said, with a note of surety in her voice.
She wasn't giving up on Oliver or Roy, not yet. Not until she had them back, or knew…knew for sure.
Thea walked around the couch, and reached up above the fireplace to yank the family crest and the weaponry attached to it. She pulled the ostentatious axe free of the crest, and lifted it over her head with a loud cry of anguish, before slamming it down against the screen; two, three, four times until it sputtered and sparked, finally silencing itself.
Filled with exhaustion after the outburst, Thea dropped down on the coffee table and started to cry again. She hated it, all she'd done was cry. The world was crashing down around them, and Thea Queen, entitled trust fund brat could only cry.
Security rushed in, filling the room, and she started to laugh.
"Just go!" She yelled, as they tried to pull her away, "Just get out of here, all of you."
She pressed her hand to her mouth as she felt a sob let trying to escape.
"There's no one left here to protect."
Before they could grab her, escorting her somewhere safer, probably in some sort of attempt to protect her from herself, she shoved past them all and stumbled into the hall.
Thea felt a shiver pass over her as the sunlight streamed in through the windows, filling it with all the warmth that seemed to be gone since she'd been alone.
She turned, rubbing the back of her hand over her eyes and found the tall figure lingering in the blinding sunlight. It felt like such a bright, almost hopeful parallel to the darkness she had felt since her life crumbled around her. Like the world owed it to her to just have one thing to get her through all of the bad. She'd lost everyone, after all; all in one fell swoop, and she was just supposed to be okay?
How are you supposed to move on from that kind of loss? How are you supposed to do it alone?
"Ollie?" Thea shielded her eyes against the glare with her hand, "Oh god, Ollie…?"
Thea hurried down the hallway, sniffling as she wiped the backs of hands across her eyes. She knew—she knew that he wouldn't just abandon her again. She knew that Oliver would come back for her—he was her big brother after all, and that was what big brothers did.
"Thea."
"Oh god." Thea froze for a moment as he stepped out of the light, and she saw his chiseled face, and blue eyes. "God…Roy! You're alive!"
Barely unable to stop the sobs of relief that threatened to pour forth, Thea threw her arms around her boyfriend and hugged him tightly, burrowing her head against his shoulder.
"I was so scared." She cried, as his arms circled around her back and held her to his chest. "Roy, I was so scared that something had happened to you. Where have you been?"
"It doesn't matter." Roy said, squeezing her and pressing a needy kiss to her lips. "I promised I'd make it back to you…"
He smoothed her hair back as he held her, rocking her in his arms.
"I thought getting out of the Glades was hard…getting past that gate was almost impossible."
Roy smiled slightly, stepping back from Thea who clung to his hand.
"But your security is going have to step it up a notch if they want to keep me away from you."
Thea turned back around and saw the guards standing there, apparently waiting to see if this was a threat.
"You can go." Thea said, feeling as annoyed with them as she ever had. "You can go."
It was with a sense of relief that they actually did disperse. It was the first time she'd ever really had any kind of sense of authority in the house.
"Roy, I thought I was never going to see you again." Thea swallowed over the lump in her throat, as she turned back to him.
"I know…about your mom." Roy said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry this is happening to you, Thea."
As she pulled him into the sitting room, the axe laying in front of the TV, a teacup overturned on the table with tea running over; Thea realized that Roy was looking around in confusion.
"What's wrong?" Thea asked, feigning total ignorance, and hoping he wouldn't ask about the axe.
That might be a hard one to explain.
"I half expected your brother to storm in here and throw me out." Roy said, glancing down at her. "He's not…I mean…"
Thea shook her head, willing herself not to cry. For a moment, she'd forgotten the ache and the fear, all of it numbed somehow by the relief of having Roy back.
"I don't know." Her voice was thick. "Tommy…Tommy never made it out. CNRI collapsed, and he was inside. I haven't seen Oliver since his funeral…at our mom's indictment, he lost it….pushed some paparazzo outside of the courthouse, and just took off."
Thea shook her head, trying to shake of the tears that threatened to fall.
"It's not the first time, or anything. I've seen Ollie go off the map before, but never alone. He was always…he always had Tommy. They were always there to pull each other back from the edge." A shiver passed through her body as she thought of all the things her brother could be going through.
There was a dark side to him now, she knew it, and she worried what it would do to him when he was in this sort of pain.
As furious as she was that he would leave her, she would give it all up in a second just to have him back. Thea needed him to be okay.
"He's not the same guy." Thea said finally, "He was different when he came back, and I'm just….I'm worried that this was too much for him, that after everything that happened on the island that this broke him."
Roy nodded his head once.
"Then we find him." He said simply.
"What?" Thea looked his way in confusion. "Roy…"
"You want your brother back, you want to make sure that he is okay, right?" Roy asked her.
Thea nodded her head. Of course she did.
"Then I'm going to make it happen." Roy told her, "Whatever you need. We'll get him back, Thea."
Thea wasn't sure how it had happened so quickly, and with such surety, but with Roy beside her, she finally felt a sense of calming security. With Roy at her side, she felt like maybe everything might be okay.
Maybe they could make it out of this.
. . .
It was with two hours' worth of acerbic remarks toward the network in general, and her databases in particular that Felicity finally got her system at Verdant up and running again.
Wonders would never cease. And Digg had called it hopeless. She hoped he could see the parallel metaphor here-nothing was hopeless with enough persistence and due diligence...you just couldn't give up because it got hard.
"You know," Digg said, his forehead creased with a wrinkle as he watched her work. "It's such a relief to see that Oliver isn't the only one who completely disregards everything I say."
He paced around the room while Felicity worked on her computers. Digg was not on board with the plan—or at least what she seemed to think passed as a plan—as a matter of fact, he thought it was closer to utter ignorance.
Optimistic to a fault, he thought. That was Felicity in a nut shell. Someone needed to consider the reality of the situation. Oliver had left, and he didn't want to come back.
"The two of you really make a pair, you know that?"
"Right now," Felicity said, "None of us are really making an anything, and I couldn't access most of these programs from my laptop."
"So, supposing you can manage to track down Oliver, what exactly is your plan?" Diggle asked, arms crossed her his chest and a skeptical look on his face, "Give him a slap on the wrist, and demand he suits up and gets over it? Stamp your feet a couple times and tell him he's disappointed you?"
"Okay, firstly," Felicity turned around to look at him, really wishing that she could get the air powered up too because right now the basement was feeling…well, like a basement. "The sarcasm isn't helpful, and no one made you come down here."
Sure they didn't Digg thought, internalizing another rejoinder she wouldn't like. He couldn't just let her wander around the city alone and helpless. She couldn't protect herself. Someone had to look after her.
He couldn't-wouldn't-share her irrational optimism. He'd seen it in Oliver, felt it coming. Maybe it was better this way.
It was like a clean break.
He'd seen the soldier who put no value on his life in battle before, and usually he didn't end up hurting only himself. Oliver didn't belong under the hood, and they couldn't force him back into being Oliver Queen, heir to a failing company.
"Also," Felicity said, snapping a little at him, "I don't know if you've noticed but I am a little overwhelmed right now, I don't know, okay? I don't know how I'm going to get him back here and under the hood again. All I know is that I'm going to find him, and then I don't know—take it from there."
She turned back to her computer and bit down on her bottom lip hard.
Felicity had never expected to be the last one standing, that pulling their little team back together was going to have to fall on her. It was Oliver who'd had the mission, who believed in saving the city; and she'd just been along for the ride.
He was the one who made her believe that one person could make a concrete difference, and change the world for the better.
That's all a great plan in theory, Digg told her, and softened his voice as she started to tap angrily against the keyboard. "
But I don't think that you know him as well as you think you do, Felicity. Right now, he's a different guy than you know."
"Right now," Felicity said, "It means that he needs help more than ever."
It's not so simple, Digg thought. The place that Oliver was in right now…he wasn't nursing a simple wound that could be fixed with a gentle touch, and faith that everything would somehow work out for the good.
He had a good relationship with a lot of the businesses in the Glades, but Carly had a better one. She hadn't been crazy about helping him with—of all things—keep an eye out for Oliver Queen, but he asked her, and she conceded.
Digg had suspected that after Oliver took off, it wouldn't be long before he retreated into the seedy underbelly of the city. If he knew Oliver half as well as he thought he did, he thought he was more comfortable there—it was a facet of the human condition that Oliver seemed to understand.
If he was looking to punish himself, there was no better place to go. He could drink and fight himself half to death with no one any the wiser. He never told Felicity he was looking, and when he got the call that someone matched the description he'd given, he'd clipped his gun into his waist without a word; it was better she wasn't involved, shed gave wanted to come along, to help, and he couldn't guarantee her safety.
Not when the city was at a boiling point like it was now.
The pub, really a hole in the wall on the east side of the city was filled with a couple dozen patrons who blended into the dirty, flea bitten environment of torn up stools and bruised and beaten down tables.
In a dark corner as he entered the bar, he watched as a bedraggled blonde woman exchanged money with a man, her hands trembling nervously as he slipped a small packet of pills into her hand. She closed her fist over it, and shoved it deep into her pocket before scurrying off. She bumped into him once, and he moved to the side to give her space.
She darted out the door without a word.
It struck him then, hard. What had he expected, a thank you? A thank you for standing by, and doing absolutely nothing?
Oliver was in the corner by the bar, a hat pulled down low over his eyes, and a line of shot glasses-empty in front of him, a bottle adjacent to them and emptying by the minute.
For a moment, Diggle realized he didn't have words for the situation. Everything here was wrong. The Oliver that he knew would never have sat in the dark, drinking his weight in whiskey as another person was falling prey to vertigo, while another became richer off of it.
He felt a smoldering of resentment in the pit of his stomach as he watched Oliver take another shot. They didn't get to just run away from their problems, he couldn't stop because it had suddenly got hard, because he wasn't sure that he had all the right answers anymore.
He was angry because he got to see what it felt like to save someone like that girl. Instead of watching her slip into the night.
Oliver was the cornerstone though, without him there was no hope, no mission...no savior for the city. He was just a man with a gun.
As Oliver leaned back, Diggle saw the tall, dark featured brunette sitting beside him, trying to coax some attention from him with her hand on his thigh, her lips against his ear.
She said something in Russian...Ukrainian, maybe? Digg didn't understand what she said, moving nearer to hear him respond in like with something she didn't seem to appreciate. She jumped up from the stool, looking like she would stalk off before she turned back and slapped him across the face.
When she left, he slipped into a seat that would eclipse Oliver's view of him for the moment and waited.
"A beer." He told the bartender. "Whatever's on tap."
He turned his attention back to Oliver, and discovered that the eastern European beauty had returned with two men, one hulking and dark with a head that was clean shaven and a tattoo across his skull, the other smaller, but obviously compensating for it with bulges at his ankle and waist that looked like a .32 and a knife respectively.
The smaller one snapped at Oliver in the sharp, guttural language, grabbing his shoulder and turning him around to face him. Tensely, Diggle watched as the angry exchange occurred; the other patrons in the bar, all on edge by the appearance of the pair, some even abandoning their drinks and trickling out of the bar, hoping to be unnoticed.
"Don't be stupid Oliver." Diggle pled silently, closing his eyes for a moment, and just hoping that he could choose to not be an idiot in this moment.
Oliver turned back around to the bar, taking another shot; and the slimmer one snapped at Oliver, taking the glass that was in front of him and threw it to the floor, uttering something in rapid Russian that caused Oliver to smile.
He responded, and both men seemed taken aback for a moment. The smaller one yanked the knife from his pocket, and pressed it to Oliver's throat. The larger man grabbed Oliver around the neck and pulled him up, and Diggle's hand tightened on his gun.
Do something Oliver.
His fingernails dug into his palm as he watched Oliver, not relaxing until finally Oliver seemed to react. His arms snapped out, whipping the smaller one with the knife and away to the floor, using his foot to kick the knife away and loosening the other's grip on his collar as he flipped backwards landing on top of the bar with his feet crouched, kicking his would be assailant in the back.
He staggered backwards from the bar, and Oliver grabbed an abandoned bottle, hitting him against the head with it, beer pooling around their feet on the floor. This one didn't collapse like his partner though, he sprang back at Oliver, landing a hard punch to his face.
Diggle jumped up, unsheathing his gun and cocking it. Oliver's attention was drawn to him for a second, before snapping back into the fight, jumping out of reach of another hit; leaping up and spryly kicking him in the chest.
Both of them laid prone on the floor, and Oliver yanked his jacket free from bar, took the bottle of whiskey that stood next to the empty shot glasses and tossed a few bills on the counter.
"I don't need your help, and I don't need you here." Oliver said his voice filled with vitriol. "I have it under control."
"Fight club with gangsters," Diggle said sardonically, with a nod of his head as he sheathed his weapon. "Under control like that?"
"Is it exhausting, Diggle?" Oliver cocked his head to the side, with a look of contempt on his face, "Thinking that you have all the answers here? Since you know so well,"
Diggle smiled grimly, he'd had a feeling it might come down to something like that. Everyone needed someone to blame, didn't they?
Oliver pushed his finger against Diggle's chest, "Don't let me hold you back. I mean, you're so smart, so moral, you always seem to know just what the occasion calls for, who it calls for, ever—"
"Oliver!" Diggle exclaimed, reaching for his own .45 as the first gangster scrambled up from the floor with the gun in his hand.
Without blinking, Oliver reached past him, grabbing a dart from the bar and throwing it at the man. It pierced his neck, and he dropped to the floor, the gun a few feet away as he screamed in pain.
"Don't worry," Oliver told him, "He's not dead."
"You're lucky that you aren't." Diggle told him, "Get a look at your face, why don't you? You need stitches."
He could see the rage that bubbled under the surface. Oliver was like a pressure cooker right now, and looked like he was waiting to explode.
"I need you," Oliver said tersely, "To move out of my way."
Oliver snatched up the coat he'd dropped as he threw the dart.
"Diggle, you don't want me to move you." Oliver told him, his voice filled with embittered rage. "Get out of my way."
"You're my friend, Oliver." Diggle said as he struggled to stomach the frustration he felt with him. "I want to help you."
"No." Oliver let out a breath that was somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "But if you don't stay out of my way, you're going to be my enemy."
He walked around Diggle, who stood in stunned shock for a second before turning and grabbing Oliver's arm to stop him. Oliver turning on his heel, grabbing his hand tightly, and twisting it behind him before throwing him against the bar.
"I don't owe you, or anyone, anything." Oliver said in a harsh whisper, pressing him against the bar with more force than he'd have figured Oliver would have after drinking himself into a bender for three days, never mind the injuries he was still recovering from after his fight with Merlyn.
Oliver let him go, slipping out of the door and into the night as easily as the girl before him had. Diggle realized as he watched Oliver slip into the black of the night that whoever Oliver had been before The Undertaking had been lost then.
No, Diggle shook his head, in the time since that night he had realized it was a confluence of events that had built up until finally imploding. The way he saw it, Oliver was like a rubber band that had been stretched too tightly. He'd been carrying on well enough, stretched thin and just holding it together enough to seem like he had it together—but this was too much, and he'd snapped.
He didn't know what exactly had happened to Oliver on the island, but he'd always been able to see it in him. As easily as he could magnetize the masses with charm, and put on a game face—Oliver had been holding it together for the job.
Neither of them, Digg thought, ever considered that it would be the job that would break him.
"If you aren't going to be on board with this a hundred and ten percent," Felicity said, "You shouldn't be here, Digg."
"It's dangerous." He stressed to her, ignoring the subject of Oliver since she wasn't going to bother listening to reason.
Felicity tugged her purse open, and pulled out a taser.
"And I'm prepared."
She glanced him over, and shook her head.
"I get that you think that this is probably crazy." She told him, "But…"
Felicity bit down on her lip, and turned back to her computers.
"I'm not ready to fold yet."
"Is anything going to change your mind?" Digg asked her, a note of desperation in his voice.
They couldn't save Oliver, and continuing to go after him was a losing battle.
"No." Felicity told him, still working on getting the databases to run.
Digg sighed exhaustedly, pulling free a small handgun from his waistband and setting it in front of her.
"I came here hoping to talk you out of this insane plan, Felicity." Diggle walked around the desk, and looked across the screen at her. "The city is in shambles, Carly needs me—and I can't chase down a ghost."
Felicity smiled slightly, and handed the gun back to him.
"Go take care of your family Digg." She told him with a nod. "They need you."
"I'd feel better if you held onto it." he told her.
"But I wouldn't." Felicity told him, "I don't do guns."
He left the gun, despite her request to leave with it, stopping and resting a hand on her shoulder.
"When it gets too big, if you're in any trouble at all," Digg told her, "Call me."
"Sure." Felicity smiled, "I'll be fine."
She listened to him close the door to the basement as he left, and sighed as she looked at the screens.
I'm not letting you slip away so easy, Oliver.
. . .