The emotion of Oliver and Thea's goodbye in the Arrow 100th episode was slightly undercut by how quickly she had changed her mind. This deleted scene adds a little weight to her decision to leave.
As always, all characters belong to DC Comics and the CW, and this is written purely for fun. Thanks for reading. I appreciate it.
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[Deleted scene, Queen's mansion (Dominator's dreamscape), after Oliver says goodbye to Thea (Arrow 5x08, "Invasion!")]
"I love you, Thea," Oliver whispered.
She wanted to say it back. So, so badly, she wanted to tell her brother she loved him one more time, but she couldn't open her mouth. Even in an alien dreamscape in which the life of the Queens was molded to perfection, she was still faced with an impossible choice: a perfect life with her parents and the rest of her loved ones, or a hard, painful journey with the big brother that through all their fights and disagreements growing up had always been, deep down, her hero.
Her brain just didn't trust her mouth to say the words, so all she managed was a little nod into Oliver's shoulder. Then he was gone.
Is this worth it? Thea asked herself, looking around at the happy guests milling about the mansion and surreptitiously wiping her eyes. Can I be happy here?
"Someone would like to talk to you," a voice to her right said.
Thea jumped, startled, and saw the smiling face of Malcolm Merlyn as he held a phone out to her in his left hand. "Oops, sorry," Malcolm chuckled, holding out his other hand in a placating gesture. "Didn't mean to scare you."
Flashes seared across Thea's brain.
Pointing a gun at him at a train station and pulling the trigger.
Apprehensively watching him slowly tip a ladle of boiling water over her hand.
Swords flashing as she fights him in the Bunker, even as she debates in her head whether she's willing to strike a killing blow against her father.
"Um," Thea responds, trying to sort her memories with her current reality, "no, it's…it's fine. Uh, who's on the phone?"
"Why don't you find out?" Malcolm smiled mysteriously, once again holding out the phone to her. Thea shrugged and took the phone, shivering slightly as her fingers brushed his hand. Didn't Ollie cut that hand off?
Thea put the phone to her ear as Malcolm walked away to speak with someone else. "Hello?"
"What's up, Speedy?" Tommy.
More flashes in her mind.
His considerate demeanor as he opens the door of his car for her to take her home, after she made a drunken fool of herself at Laurel's CNRI fundrasier.
Watching his and Laurel's discomfort and embarrassment as she blurts to Oliver in a club how they had been seeing each other after his "death."
His no-nonsense, protective attitude as he gets between her and her dealer, telling the guy to stay away from her, permanently.
She let out a sigh. "Only Ollie can call me that, Tommy."
He laughed. "Too bad, Thea. You're listed in my phone as 'Speedy.'"
Thea shook her head, even though Tommy couldn't see it. "Aren't there lives you should be saving?" she asked teasingly.
"Well, I've got a break between shifts here at the hospital," he replied, "so I thought I'd call Dad and see how things are going at the big wedding bash."
"Pretty well, minus a certain best friend of the groom. Can't you tell your patients to not be sick for a day?"
"I did. They didn't listen," Tommy chuckled. "I gotta take care of them, Thea. That's the job."
"Yeah well, you are good at taking care of people," Thea replied. "You've taken care of me after a drunken night."
"I have?" Tommy asked. He sounded confused.
"Yeah, remember?" she asked. "I had too much after the CNRI fundraiser you held for Laurel, and you took me home."
"I don't remember that. Oliver held that fundraiser for her, didn't he?"
Thea started to speak, then froze as her recovered memories swam confusingly with the dreamscape. Originally, Tommy had held that fundraiser to support Laurel, but if Oliver hadn't gone missing, he'd probably be the one to throw that fundraiser instead…
"I, uh…" Thea stammered over the phone, "yeah, I guess I forgot. It was so long ago."
"Although," Tommy continued, "Oliver told me every time he had to be your emergency pickup after a night out. You'd always call at some ridiculous hour, but he always wanted to make sure you were safe."
Thea didn't remember this, but she felt a punch in the gut all the same as she thought of Oliver. Once again, she didn't trust herself to speak.
"What's Oliver doing, anyway?" Tommy asked, oblivious over the phone to Thea's feelings. "Any chance I can talk to him?"
"He's…he stepped out for a bit," Thea lied, unsure what else she could say given Oliver's decision to leave. "Something came up."
"Ah, too bad," Tommy replied. "Well, I'll try again later. I want to make sure he's not getting cold feet and planning to flee on a yacht or something."
"Mhmm," Thea replied, desperately trying to keep the tremble out of her voice. "He'd love to hear from you."
"Same," he replied. "Okay well, good catching up with you, Thea. Take care of yourself."
"You too."
"Bye Speedy."
"Bye." The line went dead.
Thea took Malcolm's phone from her ear and slowly put it down on the table in front of her. He always wanted to make sure you were safe.
"I want you to be well. I want you to be happy."
Thea clutched her head. What am I doing?
"You look like you could use a drink."
Thea looked up and came face to face with a tray of champagne glasses and a charming smile. Roy.
The weight of his body on her couch as she sits covered with a blanket, trying to recover from the side effects of her bloodlust.
The shock on his face when she shows up at his auto shop, after Felicity had revealed to her what he had gone through to fake his death and save her brother.
The feel of his lips on hers as she cups his face, distracting him from the needle the doctor was sticking into his arm.
"Roy? What're you doing here?"
Roy cocked an eyebrow, and the tray of glasses he was holding in front of her started inching away. "Okay, maybe you shouldn't have a drink."
"What?"
Roy continued to stare at her. "I told you I wanted to earn some extra money? You said I could add this gig on top of my Verdant shifts?"
"Oh," was all Thea could muster. The memory flashes weren't stopping, and she was growing more and more disoriented between what was happening now and what had happened before.
"Are you okay?" Roy asked, putting the tray down and putting a hand to her cheek in concern.
She felt herself lean into the touch of his hand, and her brain started to calm down. Roy was here. Did she have to make it any more complicated than that?
"Yeah," she said, covering his hand with hers, pressing it gently against her cheek. "Yeah, I'm fine. Weddings take a lot out of you, you know?"
"You're telling me," Roy replied, looking around at the guests. "You Queens are fancy."
Thea chuckled. "It wouldn't be a Queen family celebration otherwise."
"As a kid from the Glades, I cannot express how uncomfortable I feel."
"Aw, I don't know. You're fitting in pretty well," Thea teased, reached over to fuss with the bow tie of his waiter's uniform.
"Yeah, well, a short lifetime of low wage service jobs will help with that," he quipped.
Thea smiled at his self-deprecating humor and almost commented on how much more he had made of himself as Arsenal, but she stopped herself. Ollie never became the Arrow. He never saved Roy when he was kidnapped. He never trained Roy to become Arsenal.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Roy asked, concern returning to his face. "You look a million miles away."
Thea nodded weakly. "Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about me."
Roy continued to stare at her, and she was disturbed to realize that, like the Roy she knew, the Roy in front of her could see through her attempts to mask her feelings. Luckily, he chose not to pursue it and instead picked up the champagne tray. "We'll talk later, okay?"
"Okay," Thea agreed. "Thanks for your help tonight."
"Anything for you."
As Roy carried away the tray, Thea watched him go. He talked the same. He felt the same. He acted the same.
But he's not the same.
He wasn't her Roy. The Roy she knew sought out the Arrow because he wanted to make more of his life. The Roy she knew gave up his life as he knew it in order to exonerate her brother and take the fall as the Arrow of Starling City. No matter what, Thea's love for him was not in doubt, but she also knew that Roy considered these events as defining moments of his life, and that he would feel like a lesser man without those events in his history. To live in a world where his personal crucibles were erased like that would be an insult to the man Roy became.
She had lost Roy once when he faked his death.
She had lost Oliver once when she thought he had drowned on that boat.
I can't lose my family again.
Almost without realizing it, she was striding away from the table, heading towards the exit of the foyer. Before she could get there, her parents were suddenly in front of her, practically materializing out of thin air.
"Thea, are you alright?" her mother asked.
"You and Oliver, what is going on with you two?" her father added.
Thea knew she couldn't hug her parents. She couldn't end this, whatever this was, by holding her mom and dad, because she knew she would never let go. Instead, she put a smile on her face. "Nothing, Dad," she assured him. "I'm actually going to go check on Oliver and make sure he's okay. I'll take care of him," she added. "I promise."
To her relief, she saw their faces relax slightly. "I'm glad to hear that. I hope you two always take care of each other," her mother replied, a small smile of her own on her face.
"We will," Thea affirmed. Then, before her nerves failed her, she gently squeezed between them, feeling their presence one last time, and found herself out of the foyer and away from the guests.
She had a sneaking suspicion this dreamscape had thrown Tommy, Roy, and her parents at her in a last desperate attempt to ensnare her, but instead they had just reminded her of what she still had to fight for. Taking a deep breath, she looked down at herself before rushing up the staircase to change.
For better or worse, the actual job of taking care of her brother was way beyond what a bridesmaid's dress could take.