A/N: I don't own Arrow or its characters.

In the beginning, she was weak.

She was a spoiled, clueless child, and everyone lied to her. Her mother, her father.

And Oliver. Especially Oliver. She's never going to forgive him for that.

After her brother and father died, she learned how to deal with the pain. She pushed it into the farthest parts of her mind, learned how to plaster on a fake smile.

She made a split, inside herself. She built a strong wall between the girl who lost the men she loved more than anything, and the beautiful, wealthy Thea Queen.

She dressed in sparkles and wore lots of eyeliner and didn't think about the half of her family rotting at the bottom of the China Sea.

And then Ollie came home, and the wall crumbled.

She shoplifted and skipped school. She got high on vertigo and crashed her car. She smirked at Oliver and ignored her mother, and she didn't care, because she was Thea Queen, and nothing could hurt her.

Because she didn't feel anything.

Her attraction to Roy was obvious. He was trouble, a lowlife with a temper and a penchant for petty theft.

He was also gorgeous, and sexy. He didn't coddle her like her mother or talk down to her like her brother. He teased her, but he also took care of her, defended her. Made her feel like she mattered in a world where she was mostly powerless.

She remembers one night, lying naked in his bed and whining about his sheets. Saying something sarcastic about his thread count. And Roy had pinned her down and made a joke about nothing being good enough for the princess.

Thea had scowled, and Roy laughed, and said he was joking, but it still stung. It made her feel like a dumb kid, like she was too precious for the real world.

Now things are different.

Roy is gentle and tender and everything she thought he wasn't. He makes sure she eats. He takes care of everything at Verdant when she can't get out of bed.

It doesn't happen a lot, but it happens sometimes.

She curls up under the covers in the dark and thinks about Sara Lance. Thea was twelve when the boat sank, so her memories of Sara from before are a little blurry. A mini Laurel, but with blonder hair and that impish dimple in her chin.

She grew up with the Lance sisters. They babysat her, painted her nails and played dress up. There are videos of her as a small child toddling after them and Ollie at parties.

Thea has a photo that she keeps inside a book on her dresser. When things get really bad inside her head she holds the photo on the floor of the bathroom and cries until she has no more tears left.

She's five or six in the picture. It's Christmas, she knows, because she remembers the dress. It's crushed velvet, cranberry red with a big satiny sash tied around the waist. A little girl's dream of a dress. Her hair is held back by plaid bows.

Ollie is holding her. He's wearing a charcoal Armani suit and his hair is too long. They're both smiling for the camera. He's holding her easily on one hip, and she has skinny arms wrapped around his neck.

On her other side stands Tommy. She is framed by both her brothers. She can spend hours looking at their faces side-by-side, wondering how she never guessed.

And on Ollie's other side, with one arm casually slung around his waist, looking happy and impossibly young, stands Sara Lance.

"Ready to go?" Roy's voice breaks her out of her daydream.

Thea spins around and hops off the stool.

"You okay?" he asks carefully, reaching for her.

She gives him a smile she learned from Moira Queen and takes his hand. "Of course."

xxx

They meet Felicity and Oliver for dinner at Table Salt.

Thea's not really sure what the situation is between them. Oliver insists that Felicity's just a good friend, but Thea sees the way he looks at her. In any case, Felicity is nice and has great taste in clothes, and Thea doesn't mind spending time with her.

Ollie's been doing this a lot lately. Taking her to dinner, arranging outings and movie nights when she's not working. She knows he's trying to distract her. Make her forget, remind her that she's alive.

Thea doesn't know why he bothers. Nothing works. Nothing makes her feel better.

She talks Ollie into letting her drive the Bentley home. He can't say no to her, especially now. She speeds, blows through a red light and signals without turning.

"Who the hell taught you to drive?" he complains.

"Not you," she mutters, changing lanes.

"I know," Ollie says. He sounds annoyed.

"You said you were going to teach me to drive," Thea whines. She's acting out, she's being a brat, but she doesn't care. "Before you left, you said that."

"I know," he says again.

"You're a terrible brother," she tells him. "You missed my junior high graduation, and getting my braces off, and my first high school dance-"

"Jesus, Thea, I get it," he snaps. "Are you mad at me or something?"

"No," she mumbles.

It's quiet for a moment, just her and Ollie and the glittering lights of Starling City.

"So who taught you to drive?" Ollie asks quietly.

"Tommy," she says viciously, and watches his face slowly turn white.

xxx

The thing about guilt is, it doesn't just go away. It lingers, festers. It takes over.

Thea has lots of tricks to make the guilt quiet. It never goes away but she can make it less intense.

Drinking is the best but it's tricky, because if she gets too drunk she gets emotional. Everything she's been repressing floods back in sharp relief and it's too much.

She's careful with alcohol.

Sometimes she grabs her forearm or her thigh and pinches, and in the sharp stab of pain she feels better, like she's paying a slow penance. Her arms and legs bruise. She likes to poke at them, dig her finger into a soft purple spot until it's hot with pain.

"When did you become such a klutz?" Roy asks one night, running his hand over a yellowing spot on her hip.

Thea shrugs. "I must have bumped into something."

"You've been bumping into things a lot, it seems," Roy comments.

"Haven't noticed," she says casually.

"Thea."

"Can we not do this right now?" Thea asks, trying to sound bored, like it doesn't matter.

"Fine. What do you wanna do?"

"I dunno..." Thea gives him an impish smile and tickles his ribs.

"Oh, you want to play, little girl?" Roy grabs her wrists and flips them so he's straddling her on the bed. Thea shrieks as he tickles her, but slowly the shrieks turn to other sounds as Roy's fingers slow to firm strokes.

Thea bites her lip, and tries not to roll her hips against his. She's been insatiable lately. She can't get enough, desperate to lose herself under his touch.

For a way to forget, even for a few minutes, what she's done. Who she is, now.

"Thea," Roy says warningly.

"Please," she whispers, her voice breaking. "Roy, please."

"Okay," he says softly. "It's okay."

Roy eases down on one side of her and pushes her silky black boy shorts down. He cups the inside of her thigh, rubs his thumb across her skin.

"Roy."

"Shh." Roy smooths the hair back from her forehead and moves his hand to cup her between her legs.

Thea exhales, letting herself relax as he parts her. He touches her in firm confident strokes, his strong fingers knowing exactly the way she likes to be touched.

"That feels good," she murmurs, his hand cool on her feverish skin.

"You wanna come?" he asks softly, nuzzling her throat.

"Not yet," Thea pants.

She reaches up and slips her hand under his basketball shorts, finding him hard and ready for her.

Roy shucks them off quickly and gets a condom out of her nightstand. She leans back on her elbows, watching as he rolls it on and kneels between her legs. Roy pauses, a look on his face that seems like concern, and Thea reaches up to kiss him.

"I want this," she tells him. "I need this."

That seems to snap him into action. He leans down, putting his weight on his elbows, and pushes into her. Thea groans into it, the relief of feeling full encompassing her.

"More," she begs, and Roy goes deeper, hitting her with a steady rhythmic stroke that makes heat curl in her belly.

He's relentless, hitting her again and again until she's crying out, begging him to fuck her. Roy growls and pulls her up, flips her around so she's on her knees. He grips her hips and slams into her, again and again and again.

"Is this what you want?" he grits out, fingers tightening on her. "You want it hard, huh?"

"Yeah," she moans. It's best like this, fast and rough and blinding. Sara goes away, Malcolm goes away.

The guilt goes away.

"Come on," Roy urges her, his hips moving faster. "Come on, Thea."

His fingers slip between her legs and he flicks, and she flies apart, screaming out and going boneless against him. Roy quickly follows her, groaning softly and kissing the side of her neck.

She falls asleep with her legs tangled in his, her mind blissfully blank.

It doesn't last long. It never does.