Chapter Text
An arrow in the shoulder.
A knife between the eyes.
A body plummeting to the ground.
A body dropping limply onto the roof.
One miraculously alive.
One indefinitely dead.
Sara doesn’t know what hurts more. The impact of the concrete or the arrow piercing her flesh.
Laurel, frozen in shock, breaks from her stupor and rushes to her sister’s side. “No! Sara!” She pulls Sara into her arms and sobs in relief when she hears the rattling breaths escaping her throat.
“Thea,” Sara chokes out.
“Thea? What about Thea?” Laurel asks, but Sara’s eyes start to droop, suddenly exhausted and overloaded with pain. “Hey, stay awake. Stay with me.”
“Ollie,” Sara whispers. “Call Ollie.” And with that, she drifts into unconsciousness.
Laurel holds her ear to Sara’s heart, the steady beating of her heart the only thing stitching together her sanity as she pulls out her phone, calling the Hood line.
“It’s Sara,” Laurel cries. “She needs you.”
“I’m on my way.”
Oliver thankfully was in the area and arrives promptly in five minutes.
The wait is grueling, Laurel pushing down around Sara's pierced shoulder, holding back the bile that threatens to escape from the feeling of her broken flesh against her hands and blood soaking her skin.
“Have you called an ambulance?” Oliver asks when he finally arrives, kneeling beside Sara.
“Not yet,” Laurel says. “I didn’t know if this was something they couldn’t be able to help.”
Oliver kneels down next to Sara, gentle hands inspecting the arrowhead. “It’s clean. Get her to the hospital. I’ll try to see who did this to her and make sure they won’t come after her again.”
“You’ll get them?” Laurel asks, voice hardened and vengeant.
“I will,” Oliver says. “You take care of Sara. I’ll take care of this.”
“She fell,” Laurel says, stopping him as he begins to run away. “From the roof. Maybe there’s something there.”
“Thank you,” Oliver says.
It takes him a few minutes to get to the roof, the rage slowly boiling inside of him the closer he gets, and when he spots a figure haloed by a pool of their blood.
His breath catches in his throat when he recognizes who is behind the hood.
Oliver collapses to his knees beside his little sister’s body, a blade embedded into her skull, impaling her forehead.
The blood is getting in her eyes, Oliver thinks helplessly. It’s getting in her eyes. Why isn’t she blinking it away? Why isn’t she moving? Why isn’t she—
But he knows. He knows and the truth strangles him.
Who did this to her? Why kill her and Sara? Why…
But then he sees the bow fallen beside her hand. Sees the quiver of arrows like the one that was embedded into Sara’s shoulder. Sees the clear target she must have had before she… before…
In a flash of grief blinded anger, Oliver thinks Sara did this, but he knows she couldn't have. For one, she couldn't possibly have been able to use one blades like this, and more damningly the knife had come from behind.
Whoever did this was attempting to deter Thea from hurting Sara.
Did they know who Thea was when they killed her? Were they already after her or was this a kill of passion and protection?
It hits him suddenly.
Thea shot Sara.
Why? Why would she shoot her?
The pieces that are coming together paint an awful bloody picture, one where Thea was not going to miss, was going to kill Sara, and only failed because someone… someone…
Oliver pulls Thea into his embrace, holding her like he did when she was a child, and he runs.
.-~*~-.
Thea’s body lies on a cot in the Foundry.
Oliver did his best to wipe the blood from her eyes but they’re still stained with it and he needs to be gentle with her because it’ll hurt if he—
But it won’t. Because she won’t feel it. Not anymore.
Felicity is at her computer, silently typing as she looks through the footage on that rooftop for evidence. Oliver wants to thank her but the words get caught in his throat and he is unable to settle until he gets any sort of information.
“I couldn’t get a face,” Felicity finally says, beckoning Oliver to join her. “But I was able to get a glimpse of their hand.”
Felicity plays the video long enough for Oliver to see a dagger get thrown, but pauses it abruptly before he can see it meet Thea’s head.
Oliver had long since removed the dagger, inspecting it and identifying it from the League of Assassins. Custom. Not typical for just any assassin and nothing he has ever seen before.
The sleeve of the hand only further confirms his findings. Indisputably League.
“The League is after Sara?” Felicity says with a gasp.
“No. I think whoever this is is protecting Sara.” Oliver scrutinizes the hand and his confusion only grows.
“It looks like a man,” Felicity says. “Are there any men you know of who would do anything to protect Sara?”
“There was once. But it’s not him.”
“Why?” Felicity says. “Maybe he came back.”
“It can’t be him because he’s dead.”
Felicity shrinks in her seat. “Oh.”
Oliver shoots her an apologetic look, unable to muster the actual words. “Barry. Sara and Laurel’s brother. Adopted.”
“They don’t talk about him.”
Oliver laughs bitterly. “Yeah. There’s a reason why.”
Barry laughed as Ollie pushed him onto the mattress, his body bouncing slightly before it’s trapped between Ollie’s body and the sheets. Ollie trailed kisses down Barry’s neck and he let out a wavering sigh. Barry’s fingers trailed up Ollie’s neck until they gripped onto his dirty blonde locks.
“God, you’re hot,” Barry breathed, the fingers not entwined in his hair trailing up Ollie’s shirt.
Ollie captured Barry’s lips into a sloppy kiss, pushing him into the bed leaving Barry gasping into his mouth.
They’re both so consumed by each other’s lips against theirs that they didn’t hear the door to their room crack open.
“What the hell?”
Ollie jumped away from Barry, eyes wide and panicked. Barry sunk into the covers as if they could swallow him whole, averting his gaze from Ollie’s father.
“Oliver,” he says tersely. “A word?”
“Dad—”
“Oliver.”
Realizing that he wasn’t in any position to argue, he followed his dad out.
Barry got up from the bed, pressing his ear to the door to eavesdrop, chest clenching with worry for Ollie.
“—what about Laurel?”
“What about her?”
“Does she know that you’ve been cheating on her with her brother?”
Silence.
Barry felt his heart drop.
No. No, Laurel’s just Ollie’s beard. He said… well, he never said but he never didn’t say…
“So what? You’re just using her?”
“I’m not using her. I love her.”
Barry’s breath hitched, lungs suddenly frozen.
“Some way to show it. So you’re using him.”
“It’s…”
“It’s what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well you better figure it out. Because the only way this ends is with both of them hurt.”
“You’re telling me to choose between them?”
“I’m telling you that you’ve already made your choice. And it’s not going to end well.”
Footsteps.
Sigh.
Doorknob rattling.
Barry jumped away from his listening spot, breath quickening with disbelief and shame.
When Ollie came in he had the audacity to grin at Barry as if nothing had changed.
“You’re actually with Laurel,” Barry said, voice numb.
Ollie’s smile dropped. “Barry—”
“No. What? What could you possibly have to say to me right now? She’s my sister! And I’ve been helping you cheat on her without even knowing it. Do you realize how this— no. You don’t. You didn’t even think about how this would make me feel because all you care about is you. That's all you ever care about. All I was was a quick fuck, a nice experiment, while you were in love with someone else. In love with Laurel. And you didn't even consider what that would mean to me. What that would do to me. To us.”
“Barry—” Ollie reached out to him and Barry shrugged his hand away.
“Don’t touch me.”
It’s then the boat suddenly tilts, throwing the two off balance.
“What’s going on?” Barry said.
The boat continued to rock before it suddenly submerged into the waters, Barry losing his standing and hitting the floor. A hole was ripped into the side of the boat, water rushing in, and Barry was sucked away, screams ripping apart his throat and hand reaching out to Ollie.
“I was a stupid kid. I never thought he’d—”
“Oliver,” Felicity says, “I’m so sorry.”
“So it can’t be him,” Oliver says. He turns away, going to join Thea again. As he does, Diggle enters.
“Are you okay?” Diggle asks. The sullen glare Oliver shoots him makes him wince. “Of course you aren’t. Sorry.”
“I need to find who killed her.”
“Oliver—”
“She was all I had left, Dig,” he snaps. “My father, my mother, they both… and now Thea… she deserves this at least.”
“You just lost her, Oliver,” Diggle says. “The hunt can wait.”
Tears pool in his eyes and his trembling hand pushes her hair from her face. “She’s gone. They’re all gone. All I do is lose the people I love.”
“That’s not true,” Diggle says. “You’ve still got us. We are still here and we aren’t going to let you push through this alone.”
Felicity puts a hand on Oliver’s shoulder. “Dig’s right. You’ve got us.”
Oliver takes a long breath and nods minutely, an admittance louder than anything he’d dare voice.
“Why her?” Oliver whispers, voice cracking on his words. “I just don’t understand. Why did she… who would…”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I’m going to find out.”
.-~*~-.
When Oliver finally is able to pry himself away from Thea’s body, the first place he goes is to see Sara.
When she meets his eyes, he can immediately see the guilt that wracks her inside.
“Ollie—”
“Why?” Oliver demands. “Why did she go after you?”
Sara sighs, fingers fiddling with the blanket of her cot. “You know that I’ve gotten into some not so legal things since I’ve gotten with Lisa.”
“You’ve implied such, yes.” He crosses his arms, indicating her to continue with a nod. Sara isn't exactly forthcoming about what she does with Lisa and her brother's crew, but he knows enough about their heists.
“Well, one of our hits got us in deeper shit than we could’ve ever known.”
“What did you do?”
“We stole from someone big. Too big.” She takes in a shaky breath. “The League of Assassins.”
Oliver’s breath hitches. “Why didn’t you tell me? No, how are you still alive?”
“We managed to make an ally.”
“An ally. In the League of Assassins. How did you—” Her face flushes and he sighs. “Sara. You did not—”
“Yes,” she says, unable to meet his eyes. “Okay? I slept with the daughter of the Demon’s Head. And she took a favor for me and Lisa and granted us very thin immunity for that particular crime.”
“And you haven’t—”
“What, tried to score again against the League of Assassins? Do you think I’ve got a death wish? Of course not.”
“But…?”
“But,” Sara says slowly. “Me and Lisa didn’t exactly stop seeing Nyssa.”
Oliver pinches the bridge of his nose. “Nyssa is married.” Though Oliver never met the man, the whispers he heard of him painted a ruthless, bloodthirsty killer.
“To a man she doesn’t love.”
“Of course she doesn’t love him! It was an arranged League marriage. For all we know, he's the one who is targeting you. Or the Demon Head himself.”
“I love her, Ollie. I love her like I love Lisa. We both do. And yeah the long distance is hell but… but she loves us too. I know it.”
The fight starts to drain from Oliver. “Okay. Well, this just opened a lot more possibilities. And a hell of a lot more questions.”
“And I’ll try to answer the ones I can.”
“Okay. Do you know who could have protected you tonight?”
“I mean, Nyssa—”
“No. It was a man.”
Sara pauses. “A man?”
“Based on the hand we saw on the footage, it was a man.”
Sara’s brows pinch together. “No. I have no idea who it could have been. Unless it was Lenny or Mick—”
"It wasn't."
"Then I don't know."
Oliver huffs with frustration. “Great.”
“You’ll find him,” Sara says. “And you’ll bring him to justice, whatever that means. But for now… you need to let yourself grieve. I know you never let yourself grieve—”
“Don’t.”
“You refuse to even think about him! And he deserves more than to be forgotten. And so does Thea.” At his silence, Sara’s lips quirk up. “I know you hate it when I’m right.” She takes his hand, mood sobering. “I’m sorry. About Thea.”
“She was going to kill you, Sara.”
“Still. She didn’t deserve to die either. Just don’t kill yourself too while trying to find who did this to her.”
“I can’t make any promises.”