7383/They'll be Okay.

They'll be Okay.
Date of Scene:	15 August 2021
Location:	Arrowcave
Synopsis:	Oliver and Thea get a lead on Oliver's situation. But with Oliver reverting to old ways, will Thea keep it together long enough to make good on her promise?
Cast of Characters:	Oliver Queen, Thea Queen

---

Oliver Queen has posed:
    It's been a few days since Oliver's return, four even. Despite it all, he's handling everything with the typical Oliver determination. Everything but Moira. How many times in one day can one woman dial the same number?

    Currently he's at that chin-up bar and at rung six. He's dressed for it in just a simple rib tank top and a pair of navy blue athletic pants with white piping, surely some name brand or another. Earbuds in his ears blare 70's pop music, one of his guilty pleasures that few know about. He didn't even hear Felicity announce there was another *him* sighting and she wasn't about to interrupt his workout to tell him, so she shot Thea a message and left it at that.

    Why wasn't Felicity willing to interrupt Oliver with such important news?

    The answer's clear when those earbuds chance from music to ringtone - not that anyone else hears it, but *he* does. His ringtone for her used to be something classical, probably soft, sweet even. Now it's a voice repeating over and over again - It's your mother calling, don't answer.

    He lets go of the bar and drops to the floor before tapping a bud in his hear. "What is it, mother?"

Thea Queen has posed:
Never underestimate a mother's tenacity to keep tabs on their sons. Specially after said son was missing for five years, presumed dead. Would anyone blame her for wanting to follow Oliver's whereabouts everyday, every hour? Maybe the recipient of such calls would... In fact there's a few more waiting on Oliver's phone right now. Does he have the suits for the fundraiser that will be happening in a couple of weeks? Worry not! Mother has suggestions ... a lot of those.

For Thea though, this has been a nightmarish time. A blast from the past, just like when he returned all those years back from the island. At the time she was still young, impressionable. What happened then took a toll out of her. And it's getting close to doing the same again. But of course that she plays it flippantly, making her way into the arrowcave just as Ollie is dropping down from the salmon ladder, "Guess some old habits never die, mmmm?" is she amused? Yes. Most likely meaning the salmon ladder is something Ollie does *constantly*. Maybe that's why Felicity spends so much time down here. Go figure!

But she arches a brow when there's another call from mother, wandering closer and gesturing for the cellphone to be passed her way so she can talk with Moira.

Sister to the rescue!

Oliver Queen has posed:
    "No, mother..." Mother, not mom. He never calls her Moira directly, so when it gets to 'mother' to her face, it's bad. "...I didn't forget about lunch tomorrow." Oh thank GOD, in his eagerness to actually get off this call, he almost drops his phone as he pulls it from his pocket to flip off bluetooth and hand the thing over after a quick. "I'll be there, Thea wants to talk to you," rapid fire and giving Moira no room to complain or protest.

    Well, she does, it's just not directly in his hear, it's as he's handing the phone off to his savior of a sister, "...but Oliver..."

    "Have fun," Oliver whispers, barely audible and certainly not to be heard by their mother as he hands off the phone.

    Is that a bruise on his face? Hidden mostly by the twelve hour shadow? Maybe another on his shoulder? Looks like someone's had a tussle; not unusual for an Oliver with all his memories to come home bruised after a *team* thing, but... there was no team thing.

    With Thea as a buffer between Oliver's irritation at his mother and herself, Felicity pipes up with, "I found something and you're mostly not naked." Cue the blushing followed by, "...that's not relevant, is it?"

Thea Queen has posed:
Taking the phone in hand Thea wraps one arm over her belly, supporting her elbow up as she starts on talking with Moira. "Hello, mom.", beat, "Yes, mom." another beat, "No, mom." a roll of her eyes. "Of course, of course. Ollie will be busy now." a moment to let Moira complain while she paces about, taking note of the various suits about, the weapons. Maybe inventorying what was taken out tonight. Oh, she knows *something* happened considering those bruises on Oliver. But she will ask later when she is not on the phone.

"Yes, I have the suits. It's exactly what we will be doing. Trying them out." a glance over her shoulder to Ollie, "We got to make sure he doesn't go out there on his own." was that a poke at having noticed those bruises?

"Yes, I am like a hawk. You know me. But anyway, got to focus now. Gray or black is the decision! So we got to go. I will let you know how it went later. Bye!" then turns off the phone and exhales slowly. "It is done."

She walks closer to the center where the various computers are, smiling at Felicity, "I got your message. You mentioned something about another sighting?"

Oliver Queen has posed:
    Subtle, Sis. Oliver noticed the poke, chooses to ignore it for now, maybe indefinitely. "Thanks, Thea. She called this morning to ask me what I was having for breakfast? Is that normal? Does she *always* do that?" Or is she suspicious? Does she sense something's not right with her 'baby boy'? ... even more not right than the usual secrecy.

    He follows, all sweaty from his work out, shirt clinging, and leans over Felicity's shoulder, hand pressed against the wall behind the monitor.

    "Oh.. uh... you're all sweaty, please don't get me wet," Felicity murmurs. Does she even *know*. Maybe after it's out of her mouth, cue more blushing, but before it came out? No idea. "...so..." A few taps on the keyboard and a grainy video starts.

    It's obviously from some home security camera based on the quality of it... and the fact that it's aimed at a backyard. The night-vision's pretty good though, it's clearly Oliver. He's wearing nothing but a pair of white cotton boxers - something he would *never* have in his drawers or on his body by choice, but the same ones under the sweats he was wearing when he showed up at home. He's soaking wet and ... stealing said sweats off a clothesline? Seriously, who hangs clothes to dry anymore? Vegan hipster probably.

    "Mostly not naked," Oliver says from behind the little techie. "I don't... remember that."

    "The address is near the Delaware City Marina," Felicity offers so very helpfully.

Thea Queen has posed:
"Not all the time." Thea assures Oliver, sliding the phone across the table towards the man, "But she's always had a sixth sense for some things." just not when she was down being an addict and on drugs. Is Thea's tone bitter? Well yes, it is. But just in the same way that Oliver ignores the poke at where he was to get those bruises she doesn't really continue down that line of thought, instead focusing on what's going on near Felicity.

Amusement reigns on her expression and she mouths over to Felicity something akin to 'Abscity', but of course that no sound comes off. Some kind of old, inside joke between the two! Which just cues more blushing.

But that's before the image on the screen comes up, Thea's arms folding together and she resting a hip against the side of a table, sharp eyes watching.

"It's a good place to start at." She says, "Delaware City Marina though? That's not the first place I'd think of from where bad guys would be operating from." but a frown comes to her expression. Somehow it just feels like it was the end of a trip and not where he was. "How much time between that footage and the one we got before?"

Oliver Queen has posed:
    "It was three thirty-two in the morning, the day he came home," Felicity explains. "Do you remember this?" She freezes the video and zooms way in, adjusts this or that... that or this, to eliminate some of the graininess. Abscity in deed, she's zoomed in on Oliver's chest where two of the wounds, that were actually still wounds and not just scars, when he came home... are reopened.

    Someone didn't mention that, did he?

    "Uh...' Busted Oliver.

    But saved, for the moment, by Felicity. "So, it took a little work, a lot actually," and she goes on to ramble about tapping satellite feeds blah blah blah blah, through which Oliver just blank stares; but it's likely Thea gets most of it.

    This time it's an image, not a video. ... a man, about Oliver's height and weight and wearing only white boxers, so it's him, even if his features aren't clear enough in the picture to be certain otherwise. He's climbing from the water onto a dock at the Marina. Looks like someone took a swim.

    "I don't remember that either," he murmurs quietly. "Actually... I don't remember anything until I was walking down the street right before our driveway." Driven there by instinct, some sense of 'safety and home', mind brought to focus and out of whatever fugue he was in by the sight of it, the sight of *home*?

Thea Queen has posed:
That's ..., strange. Thea cocks her head to the side to look at the chest, perhaps not exactly focusing on the same Felicity does. Instead it's those wounds. She squints her eyes, "That makes no sense." she tells them. "Those wounds .., they used to be scars. From Lian Yu. It's almost as if ..., someone was trying to do some kind of re-enactment of it all?" she shakes her head a bit to herself. But it would explain the jumbled memories.

Her eyes go to Felicity and she asks. "Can you check for ships that were in the logs as being at the marina at the time?" attention on Oliver, "You can't have swum all the way from Lian Yu." this was all still a mystery for sure. It makes her dislodge herself from the table, pacing around quietly.

"Or wait, is that image from *after* Oliver got the boxers at Delaware? And then came down to Starling's Marina?" her eyes narrow in thought.

Oliver Queen has posed:
    The two injuries in question are hidden beneath that tank-top, but with focus and attention brought directly to those particular areas, it's easy to discern the slight outline of bandages over them.

    "Funny you should ask," Felicity announces all proud of herself. "Nothing logged at that hour but...." A few more clicks and another image, grainy satellite zoomed in and enhanced to the best of anyone's ability. It's a boat all right, but it's a small outboard... with Oliver at the motor. "Best I can figure, he abandoned it and swam from there." He is wearing the boxers in the image, so still only mostly not naked until he gets the sweats and t-shirt in the later video.

    "And then there's this..." Felicity is on a *roll*. This time it's a newspaper article, something about a small island, uninhabited, in the Atlantic, not far from Delaware, a lightning strike, fire, smoke seen for miles. Not a big story because it wasn't big news, it was nature; left to burn itself out. A burned Island, a boat trip that included a bit of the Atlantic, likely a trip through Cape Henlopen and then down the Delaware River to the city Mariana and from there, it's anyone's guess so far? How he got to Starling? Still a mystery.

    Oliver's quiet now, brooding might even be the term for it. Man's handling it all like crazy 'whoa' chill, in typical Oliver style. Doesn't mean that sometimes it doesn't ... well, scare the hell out of him.

Thea Queen has posed:
The newspaper article makes Thea approach the big screen again, hands on the table and she leaning forward, "And let me guess, the timeframe fits the period in which Oliver was gone." the younger sister tightens her jaw, in silence for a while, head bent down while considering the information they have so far. Too big a coincidence to not have this be part of what happened. A glance to Oliver, "We will have to go there."

It wasn't a question.

"And no going on your own this time." Oh yes, Thea is pressing on that issue of the bruises she noticed on Ollie. Turns out Thea grew to be a bit pushy. Who would had guessed? She was so sweet when Oliver disappeared all those years ago too!

"Nothing ringing a bell yet?" Some concern lacing her tone while she speaks.

Oliver Queen has posed:
    "If what we're all probably thinking is true, Oliver likely left that island sometime... late evening the night before he came home," Felicity says, voice almost a whisper. Even *she's* a little discombobulated over all of it, subdued.

    "Nothing." Not a damned thing. Oliver moves away from the Felicity and the monitor just a little bit, as if making an attempt to distance himself from the lot of it, if only for a minute, give himself time to breathe, think. "Not sure middle of the day is a good time for it." Under the cover of night's always better, just in case there's still someone out there?

    He doesn't argue the 'we' of it. He doesn't argue the 'we' of it to the point that his non-arguing might seem suspect. Oliver's own jaw is slightly tense, that little muscle popping in his left cheek. It's the eyes though, that give him away. Oh yeah, he's considering his options, very possibly his 'alone' options.

    ...which isn't *Oliver*, not the one that vanished near a week ago anyway. No this is *that* Oliver, the secretive one with a penchant and heart for Vengeance not Justice; the one that came home from Hell all those years ago.

Thea Queen has posed:
The suggestion about going at night is met with a nod from Thea. Yes, she can understand the advantage of it, and Ollie has always been the tactician. More than her that's for sure! But she also notes the underlying tone, the alternative reason for it. Yes, she knows it well. In fact she has been blamed for doing the *same* thing over and over during her more ..., troubled times. Which really, they had never went away for real.

"We will go at night. The two of us." She reminds Oliver. "And even Diggle if he returns in time for it." He had been out for a few days now. But upon hearing on Oliver's condition? He had made sure to be on his way as soon as possible.

But then she is silent for a time, watching her brother like a hawk. And the tension is felt. You can cut it with a knife even! So much so that even Felicity notes it, adjusting her glasses and looking back at the screen to taptap on the keyboard.

"I don't know if I can handle you going back to those times, Ollie." Thea finally admits it, as much to Oliver as to herself.

Oliver Queen has posed:
    The problem is, for Oliver, it doesn't feel like 'going back to' anything, it just feels like it is what it is and it's the way it's supposed to be, even if his head knows different. His head still doesn't know *what's* supposed to be different. There's nothing there but the Island and before, there's nothing of the steps he took forward, to move past it, to be a better man.

    He shifts those blue eyes to his sister, forces his jaw to relax. "I know, sis, you won't have to." He lies like it's second nature, because back then? Well it was. Back then he was able to make it believable, sincere, genuine. He does so now as well, even though he really has not a clue what it all means. Those times, they're his *these times*.

    He reaches out to pull his sister close for a hug. "We'll be okay, Thea," he murmurs quietly.

Thea Queen has posed:
You won't have to.

The lie would be good if it wasn't Thea. And if she wasn't seeing herself represented in her brother's expression. Lying when saying all was fine, that he wouldn't have to worry. That she wouldn't go back to the drugs, or to alcohol. And violence is just like an addiction. Vengeance. And the worst of it all is that she knows how he lies. To protect her. Can Thea blame him though? Still, it's visible on her expression that she isn't believing him but she blessedly doesn't contradict him, or get into a discussion.

Instead she lets herself be taken into that hug, resting her head against the man's chest.

"We will."

She had made him a promise before. And damn right she would make sure she didn't fail it.