A/N: I don't own Arrow or its characters. Please Leave a review :)
Eventually, when sunlight starts peeking through her curtains and the clock assures her that it's morning, Thea slides out of bed and goes down to the kitchen. She starts a pot of coffee and sits on a stool with her head in her hands, wiping away slow, quiet tears.
She's just tired. She just needs some coffee.
Great. Not only is she lying to everyone else, now she's lying to herself.
The coffeemaker beeps, jolting her out of her pity spiral. She goes to the cabinet and pulls out the biggest mug she can find, and turns to the fridge to get creamer.
Her mother walks into the room.
The mug slips from her hands, shattering into pieces, but Thea doesn't notice, because her mother is standing right in front of her.
"Mom?" she whispers.
Her mother gives her a gentle, graceful smile and Thea crumples, landing on her knees in the grass.
It's dark and her hands are tied behind her back and she's kneeling on the grass.
No. This isn't happening. Not again.
"I love you, Thea," her mother says, right in front of her, close enough to touch.
She can hear Ollie's voice in her head, crying, "Mom, what are you doing? Mom!"
And then Slade Wilson appears and pierces a sword through her mother's chest.
A scream tears from her throat and Thea keels over, cracking her head on the hardwood.
It's dark and she cries for her mother until strong arms pull her up.
"Thea?"
It's Ollie.
"Thea, you're bleeding."
"Ollie, I saw Mom."
His face goes white. "What?"
"She was just here," she blubbers, "I saw her."
"Thea, Mom's dead."
"She was just here." She holds her arms out. "She was just here."
Oliver grasps her face. "What'd you take, Thea?"
"Nothing," Thea cries. "She was real, I saw her!"
"Thea, you're hallucinating! It's not real."
"You don't understand," she exclaims. "I saw her, she was just here, she was right-"
Ollie's face shifts-
She blinks and he's gone and she blinks again-
Slade Wilson stands in front of her, wielding a blood soaked sword.
"No!"
She drops to her knees, rolling away from him, and he grasps her by the ankles, pulling her back. She shrieks, kicking wildly at him.
"Thea," he growls, "stop."
She blinks, because he doesn't sound like Slade, he sounds like-
"Oliver, what's happening?" Felicity's voice floats down from the top of the stairs. She sounds frightened.
"Get Roy!" Oliver shouts.
She blinks in surprise, because Ollie is suddenly Ollie again.
"Thea," he whispers, holding his hands out to her like she's a wounded animal. "Thea, it's okay. It's me."
"Oh, god." What the fuck is happening? "Ollie, I don't know what's happening to me!"
"Thea, listen to me. Whatever you're seeing, it's not real, okay?"
His face blurs, Ollie-Slade-Ollie-Slade, until she screams, slamming her eyes shut.
"Thea!" Ollie's yelling at her, and she screams louder, tries to block everything out.
"Thea, fight it!" he yells. "Come on Thea, fight!"
"I can't," she sobs, pulling on her hair.
"Yes you can. You're strong. Come on, Thea."
"Make it stop!" she screams. "Make it stop!"
"Thea!" It's Roy. She turns to look for him coming down the stairs but there are men in masks everywhere.
"No," she sobs, crumpling on the floor. "No."
"What's wrong with her?" Roy shouts.
"Hold her down," Ollie instructs.
Thea flails, trying to get away from the men in masks, but their arms comes around her, holding her tight.
"Thea, stop, it's me."
She hears Roy's voice in her ear but she's so afraid.
She can't stop screaming.
"What the hell's happening to her?"
"I don't know," Oliver says. "She's hallucinating."
"What?"
"Robins' men drugged her. The hospital must have missed something."
Thea risks opening her eyes. A man in a black mask stares down at her and she shrieks, jerking in someone's arms, her feet flailing wildly.
"Shh, Thea, it's okay," she hears Roy say, but it's like he's talking through a fan, his voice choppy and far away.
"Calm her down," Ollie says. "She's getting blood everywhere."
"Thea," Roy shouts, so she can hear him over the sounds of her own screaming. "Listen to me. I know you're scared. Just listen to me. Focus on my voice."
She weeps in his arms, feeling something cold and wet on her face.
"You're okay," Ollie murmurs. "You cut your forehead. Just gonna clean you up."
"I'm sorry," she cries, in an unexpected wave of lucidity. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
"It's not your fault," Roy says.
"Roy," she gasps. She tries to say, Roy, I'm scared, but it's like when she's having a nightmare and she tries to scream but nothing comes out.
"You're okay," he says. "I've got you."
She tries opening her eyes again and stifles a shriek, closing them almost immediately.
"Maybe keep them closed," her brother suggests gently.
"Ollie," she sobs. "What's happening?"
"Hey," she hears Roy say, "her heart is beating really fast."
"Don't worry, Thea," Ollie says. "We'll figure it out. Roy, hold her there, I'm getting her a sedative."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"We gave one to Laurel when she was dosed with Vertigo."
"You think this is Vertigo?"
"What else could it be?"
Everything fades, she blacks out or something, because the next thing Thea knows someone is trying to pry open her mouth.
"Open up, Thea," Ollie's saying.
A pill gets placed on her tongue and she swallows reflexively. She hears Oliver exhale sharply in relief.
He tells Roy to pick her up and then she's being lifted, carried out of the room and onto the couch. She keeps her eyes squeezed shut, clenching her jaw so tight her teeth start to chatter.
She can hear fingers clacking over a keyboard and Oliver asks someone, "What are you doing?"
"Acceding her medical file from last night," Felicity answers. "I'm hoping that...yes! They took a blood sample."
"So?" Roy says. "How does that help?"
"Because...ha! I just told them to send the sample to Star Labs. It should only take a couple of hours for Caitlyn to analyze it."
"Thea?" It's Ollie's voice, soft and warm in her ear. "How are we doing?"
She turns her face, burrowing into a solid chest. "I don't feel good."
" I know. I need you to open your eyes for a second, okay?"
"No," she whines.
"Just for a second," he wheedles. "If you see something scary you can shut them."
She complies, slowly, slowly, peeking out through her lashes.
Ollie's face blurs in front of her but it's him, even if he won't focus.
"What do you see?"
"You're all blurry."
"Anything else?"
She shakes her head, letting it fall back on someone's (Roy's?) chest.
"Roy," she mumbles.
"I'm here," he says, threading his fingers through hers.
"I'm so tired." She feels drained, even worse than last night, like she could sleep for a week.
"Can she sleep?" Roy asks. "She's not going to like, go unconscious, is she?"
"Maybe we should take her to the foundry," Ollie says. "We can monitor her there."
"No," she moans softly. "I can't sleep on that stupid table."
"Thea, do you have any other symptoms?"
"I just want to sleep, Ollie. Please."
"Okay," he says uncertainly.
She leans back against Roy and squeezes his fingers. "Don't let go."
He kisses the top of her head. "Never."
xxx
She wakes up a few hours later, wedged between the back of the couch and Roy, fast asleep with an arm thrown across his face. Felicity is on the floor with a tablet in her lap, and Ollie is sleeping on one of the leather couches across from her.
"Apparently sleep deprivation is a major side effect of vigilantism," Felicity comments. She tilts her head back against the couch to look at Thea. "How're you feeling?"
"Tired." She rubs her eyes. "Thirsty."
"No hallucinations?"
She shakes her head, crawling over Roy's body and slides down next to Felicity, who pats her shoulder gently and tells her not to move. She disappears around the back of the couch and comes back with a glass of water.
"Thanks," Thea murmurs, accepting the glass and sipping, cool water parching her dry throat.
"Thea," Felicity says softly. "Are you okay?"
"I really don't know how to answer that question," she says, leaning her head against the back of the couch.
Felicity gives her a sad smile and squeezes her hand. "We're all here for you. You know that, right?"
Thea nods, afraid if she says something she'll start crying again.
Felicity's tablet beeps, some kind of alert going off, and Oliver jolts awake.
"It's Caitlyn," Felicity says, going over to her laptop. "The analysis is done."
"Well?" Oliver says impatiently.
"Hold on..." Felicity's fingers fly over the keys. "You were right. She was dosed with Vertigo."
"I don't understand." Oliver pushes the heels of his palms against his eyes. "Vertigo hits immediately. Why did it take so long to come on?"
"It's slow acting. It mimics a tranquilizer at first; it takes at least twenty-four hours to come on fully, which would explain why the hospital cleared her. They thought she was just knocked out. As for the hallucinations it seems like...oh. Well, that explains it."
"What?"
"It targets traumatic memories."
Ollie turns towards Thea. "You saw Slade, didn't you?"
"Yeah," she whispers, the memory making her shiver.
"The good news is it should be out of her system by now. Once the hallucinations stop the only side effect is fatigue. She should be feeling okay by tomorrow."
"Thank god," Ollie sighs.
They all jump when there's a loud knock on the front door.
"How is he still sleeping?" Ollie mutters, casting a glance at Roy.
"You grow up in the Glades, you learn to sleep through anything," Roy replies without opening his eyes.
There's a second knock and Ollie sighs, scrubbing his face with his hands. "I'll get it."
He disappears around the corner, and a second later she hears him say loudly, "What do you want?"
The second voice is cold and arrogant and makes Thea's stomach cramp.
"I'm here to see my daughter."
Malcolm.