AN: Sorry you guys had to wait so long for another chapter. I was waiting for inspiration from the muse :) I finally received the needed inspiration when re-watching the Season 2 Finale in preparation for the Season 3 Premier. I hope you enjoy it!

Mic RiddyBanon is my wonderful beta who helps find/fix all my mistakes! Thank you my friend.

Disclaimer: I do not own Arrow, it belongs to the CW.

Chapter 4 - Thea

Thea Queen had been trusting. For as long as she could remember she had trusted her family, her mom, her brother. But for what? For them to lie to her?

When Oliver came back from the island, after five years, she had thought that they would go back to the way things were before he ever left on the Gambit with her dad. But she could tell, right from the first family dinner, that it wasn't to be. He seemed distant and when she asked what the island was like his face changed. He went from being happy to dark and cold, almost like he was remembering being tortured or something. She knew then that he was hiding things from her. She simply hoped that with time he would open up, talk to her, just like he used to.

Thea quickly found out that that wasn't to be either though. Oliver started spending his nights away, being late for everything, missing events, he was lying to them and she could tell. He was obviously doing his best to be the carefree Ollie that left on the Gambit, but she suspected that that wasn't really who he was now. He had changed - and he wasn't being honest with her. That was making it incredibly difficult to trust him now.

Then, suddenly, her mom was keeping things from her too. It was subtle at first, so subtle that Thea almost didn't notice. But then she realized that her mom was spending an awful lot of time with Malcolm Merlyn. She suspected that her mom was cheating on Walter with the man and couldn't figure out why. Walter was the best thing that had happened to her mom after the Gambit went missing. He had brought her out of her grief, given her something to live for. So why then was her mom cheating on him? She confronted her mom, who denied it outright. Thea wasn't convinced.

In the midst of everything there was one person that surprised her. Roy, the kid who stole her purse. She had only tracked him down to get her purse back, and he had tricked her into not pressing charges, but for some reason she still trusted him. She knew it wasn't the smartest decision that she had ever made, but she couldn't help it. It wasn't long before she found that she cared for him.

Roy was the only constant in her life. Sure, he didn't like to admit when he had been fighting in the Glades again, but he was always there for her. She clearly remembered how her heart had broken when The Savior abducted him. She was sure that she was going to watch as her boyfriend was murdered on live television. She wasn't sure she could survive that. Then the Vigilante saved him. After that he was obsessed with finding the man who had saved him - and she had helped him.

Their search was put on hold when the news of the Undertaking came out. Thea could still remember what she had felt the day that her mom had held the press conference, telling Starling City that she had been complicit in the Undertaking. She had been hurt, hurt that her mom lied to her, hurt that her mom would even think of being involved in something like that, and devastated as she realized that Roy lived in the Glades. She went to him as quickly as she could to make sure he was out of the Glades when whatever was going to happen happened. She knew she would never have forgiven herself if something happened to him because of her mom.

That night she lost her mother as she went to jail, her friend Tommy who died in CNRI, and her brother who disappeared shortly after. At that point she only had Verdant and Roy left -and one of them was getting into fights in the Glades again. It was five months before she saw or heard anything from her brother again. It had also been five months since she had seen her mother. She was still hurt that her mom had been involved in the Undertaking and was hurt that Oliver would just disappear for a vacation right after everything went down.

Thea was strong, as strong as she could be, during her mom's trial, and even after when her mom and Oliver apparently weren't getting along. She didn't know what had happened, just that they were hardly talking to each other. It was like they weren't even family. She knew that there had to be a reason for it and simply hoped it would be resolved, and soon. She was tired of all the lies and secrets that those closest to her were keeping and yet she still trusted them.

It wasn't much later that Thea realized that she had made a huge mistake. It wasn't long before she broke up with Roy after she found him cheating on her, her mom was running for Mayor, and Slade Wilson appeared in their lives. She had been trusting even then. Her mom said that Mr. Wilson was a good man, a friend, and she believed her. However, her view was soon changed when he abducted her. The rest of her trust in her family was shattered that night. Mr. Wilson told her that both Oliver and her mom were keeping secrets from her. He told her that Robert Queen wasn't really her father, that Malcolm Merlyn was. She realized then that she could never trust either of the people in her family again. That night she found that she hated her family.

The night of her mom's campaign party at Verdant Thea was reminded yet again of how many secrets her family was keeping from her. Especially when she saw the look shared between Oliver and her mom when she asked where Ollie had been when Roy was going crazy in the club. They claimed that they had been together, but she didn't believe them, again. On the way home her mom was finally going to tell them a secret, something about Merlyn, when their car was hit. That night she learned another secret about Oliver, he hadn't been alone on the island after all. Slade Wilson had been there, and now the man was holding them all hostage, making Oliver choose who would die, because of something that had happened between them. She knew that night that she would never be able to make amends with her mom. Slade killed her.

Her world finally unraveled completely the night Starling City was under siege. She had been at the train station, ready to leave town and go far, far away. She had run to the train platform when the man started attacking people at the station. It was there that she came face to face with the man who was her father, a mass murderer, and supposedly dead. He claimed he was protecting her, she shot him instead. Then she ran to Roy's house, meeting him there. She hoped that this time there would be no more secrets between them, and she was hopeful when he told her to pack and he would be back soon. She should have known then.

It was as Thea was packing their bags that she finally knew, she knew that she had been wrong to trust anyone. She had just emptied one of Roy's dresser drawers when she kicked something under the bed. She pulled out something wrapped in a blanket only to find that it was a red bow and some arrows. After looking at it for a moment she suddenly knew. Roy had been helping the Arrow all along, and had been hiding it from her, lying to her. That was when she knew what she had to do.

Thea wrote Roy a note and left it on top of his bow and arrows before turning to leave, for good. She knew that she couldn't stay here anymore, not in the town where her mother had died, her brother was distant, barely talked to her, and lied to her, and her boyfriend was running around with the Arrow and lying to her about it. She realized that she had been too trusting, which made her weak. All the lies and betrayal from those she thought loved her was too much for her. She did the only thing that made sense.

Thea knew that her life was about to change as she met Malcolm Merlyn at his limo. She didn't know where she was going or how long she would be gone. But she did know one thing.

Thea Queen would be weak no more.

AN: I hope you liked it! Please leave me a review to let me know what you think!