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Chapter 6-"What Was."
"Confirmed." Oliver said, putting his phone down on the countertop. "Fake background. Well made, but definitely fake. We've got our Prometheus." His Henley was unbuttoned all the way down, as if he was trying to shed a little of the day's stress.
"Do we have enough proof to publicly vindicate the killing?" Sara asked. "Or do we want to? You're mayor. It'd be pretty bad if your own DA was assassinated, but if your own DA was a mass murderer…" She drummed her fingers, pondering. "The media would blame you."
"Or, if we take him in and put him on trial…" Oliver said, raising an eyebrow. "Let justice be done publicly."
"Assuming we could capture him and had enough evidence." Sara said evenly, with that tone that said I'm really impatient but hoping I'm not showing it.
"It's the right thing to do." Oliver said firmly. Sara shrugged, walked over to a plush leather recliner by the fireplace. Oliver raised an eyebrow. "You've got that look."
"I used to feel so guilty about kills. All of them." Sara said. "Now, just some."
"Why's that?" Oliver asked.
"I spent some time in Gotham… learned about their vigilante." Sara said. She idly rubbed the arm of the sofa, feeling the soft leather. The warm colors of the sofa went well with the condo. It felt like a home, like a place where some of the harshness of life faded away, became a bit softer and more caring.
"Did you meet him?" Oliver questioned. Sara shook her head.
"I met some cops, talked to people about him. You know, for several years, he would never kill. He would injure people, maim criminals, but he would never kill. And then the consequences hit home. Criminal called joker." Sara said, looking at the empty fireplace, at the beauty of the little home. She had been told that Thea had almost died in front of that fireplace.
"I studied him a bit… deranged serial killer. Dresses like a clown." Oliver nodded.
"Well, the Gotham police chief, guy named Gordon, he said the vigilante had an accomplice, a young guy. Kind of like you and Roy, but he used a sort of pike/staff weapon. Supposedly quite an acrobat. And then, there was a bad crime scene, set up like a bloody circus, probably the Joker." Sara shrugged, made a pained face. "The vigilante vanished for weeks, and Gordon never saw the accomplice again."
"And then?" Oliver prodded.
"The vigilante killed without hesitation." Sara said simply. "Most of the deaths were massive trauma. Criminals would be thrown into walls so hard their skulls were cracked, or struck so hard their ribs broke and their hearts stopped. Like that. The vigilante started using some sort of armored rapid assault vehicle, mounted with 7.62mm machine guns. There's a few utterly shredded vehicles in the evidence lockups, amazing damage."
"Loss is hard." Oliver nodded. "It's brutal."
"And it's brutal when you're hurt by your own policy." Sara said, bringing her point home. "The cop told me about how the Joker had ramped up quite a body county, and the vigilante refused to kill. How many innocents died so he could feel noble? And then, it came back to bite him. He lost his brother, just like all those people who died so he could keep blood off his hands."
"You're saying like how I lost Laurel." Oliver said quietly.
"Yes." Sara's voice was barely audible. "When you go out and fight the bad guys and walk away without bloody hands, it feels noble. They keep killing whoever, but you're fighting to stop it, the right way. Then you find out what those casualties feel like because you didn't put the bad guy down when you could have. You find out how those families felt when their daughter was murdered, when their son was murdered, when their father or mother's corpse was found somewhere"
"It… it haunts me." Oliver admitted. "That I could have stopped him. I could have saved her." He didn't say the names. Didn't need to. "That if I just made the right choice, this all could be different."
"Maybe it could have been." Sara said truthfully. "Maybe I could have come home sooner, risked it. Maybe you could have gone home sooner. Or neither of us got on that boat, or, or… " She shook her head, got up, sat next to Oliver. "Life's a city full of mist, and we can only see a little ahead. We make our choices, we live with them, and we move forward." She kissed him softly, felt a small tear roll down the side of her face. She pushed a little, and he let her, until he was on his back on the sofa and she was laying on top of him, her hair falling like a curtain around their faces.
"Sara... I want you to know, I am so sorry, for everything." Oliver said, his voice a whisper.
"I forgive you, for everything." Sara said, her voice as if someone might have overheard them. "Will you forgive me, for leaving, when I should have been here?"
"Yes." Oliver said, kissing her.
"Is this where you ask me to join you… just one last adventure?" Thea asked, putting a dramatic flair on the latter half, and adopting an English accent for some reason.
"No." Oliver shook his head slowly. "I think you've fought long and hard enough. You deserve a life." A look flashed across her face. Disappointment, maybe. Relief?
"So you're handling this alone?" Thea asked. "How?"
"Not alone… Sara and I will handle Adrian. And then we're done." Oliver said, swirling his drink in his cup a bit.
"Really." Thea said, a little sarcastically. "Done. Just like that."
"We've spent enough time as soldiers." He took a sip of his drink. "Enough time binding wounds and wondering when someone will get lucky on us. We already have a tracer on his car… his patterns are being logged."
"Trying to find the best place?" Thea asked. Oliver nodded.
"It's risky… all around." Oliver said. "Take him outside City Hall and there's more escape routes… take him in the residential area and infiltration and exfil is harder."
"Did you think about just giving the proof to the police?" Thea remarked.
"We'll burn that bridge when we come to it." Oliver said, avoiding a real answer. "I didn't really come here to talk about that."
"What did you come here to talk about?" Thea sighed.
"Thought I'd come see you and spend a little time with you." Oliver said, smiling a little. "Do I need a reason better than that?" She paused a little bit, and something broke in her face.
"You don't know if you can take him." She said, stepping back, shaking her head. "You came to see me in case he killed you."
"That possibility has crossed my mind." Oliver admitted. "It could happen."
"Give the information to the cops. Let them handle it." Thea urged. "It's their jobs, what they do."
"Thea, he might have enough evidence to implicate me… and he might implicate you. Sara. Quentin. You all could be charged as co-conspirators to mass murder." Oliver said, a little bitterly. "We can't go to the cops. We can't let him testify or have a lawyer. Or this will never end. We'll be fleeing to Moldova or Ukraine or Russia. Sara and I will handle this—but you have to leave the country for a little while. There's a gorgeous resort in Moscow I checked out."
"We wait in Moscow while you maybe get killed?" Thea demanded, fury rising in her voice. "I can fight too. I can help end this."
"You can't fight on this level." Oliver shook his head. "I'm not risking your life like this."
"It's not your decision to make." Thea snapped.
"Yes it is." Oliver said. "We're the last of the Queens. If Adrian isn't stopped, he'll end me and he'll kill you to spite me. But I'm not risking that. If I fail, or if Adrian has some sort of dead man's trigger on evidence, I'm not letting it end. I could go down. But you're not coming with me. You're going to have a life, and you're not letting our name die with us."
"You sound like this is going to happen." Thea said. "Like the worst things are already set. And we can't stop it."
"I'm going to stop it." Oliver said firmly. His eyes met hers. "Thea, I'm going to stop him, and I'm going to set things right. We're going to be okay, all of us."