The Foundry

He forgot how what it felt like; this lightness, this relief, as if he'd grasped onto the edges of a buoy before he was dragged out to the ocean by the riptide. Thea was safe, Thea knew, Thea didn't despise him. They lost the case of super serums; Merlyn and Talia were both in the wind. But he had done right by her. In the end that was the only thing that truly mattered. And battling the rest of this war and winning didn't seem like such a daunting, impossible prospect.

Oliver was on the couch, recuperating, when the garage doors rattled open.

He instantly knew something was wrong.

He heard her sobs before he saw her. Oliver jolted upright, hissing when his chest flourished with pain against the movement.

A body was flopped against her. Her other hand pressed a blood-soaked towel to -who he recognized as-Artemis' stomach, her eyes were closed and she was white as a sheet.

"Felicity?" He whispered, half-aware that this was not the worst of it. She couldn't bear to meet his gaze.

"What happened?" He asked, louder, more panicked, as he went to help carry Artemis onto a table.

She licked her lips and stared at him with her tear-stained face. The words could not escape her throat, her arms trembled as she continued applying pressure on Artemis' wound. "Sara…she—she—"

And then Laurel entered, carrying Sara in her arms. There were arrows in her, and she was so still…

"Sara?" His voice was soft and broken.

"I didn't know where else to take her," Laurel sobbed. She gently lowered her sister onto a metal table, never taking her eyes off her pale face.

Oliver wanted to whirl, and run, run to Lian Yu and never return to this.

But he forced himself to near them. Laurel was cupping Sara's face, as if by a miracle she would wake. Their foreheads touched and she cried, quietly begging for her. The ache in his stomach, the blood on her mouth, the points of the arrows, Laurel's tears, it wasn't possible for this to be real. It was a nightmare. He did not wake up this morning, or whenever he'd last had a wink of sleep. He was not seeing any of this.

He reached and tentatively closed her cold eyelids.

The last words exchanged between them were an ultimatum for her to choose sides. That was how he left their relationship; devoid of any affection, merely two blocks on a scale.

He hung his head, feeling like the worst human being. He closed his fists against the table, willing himself not to crack, not to let the inevitability of the life he chose trample on his resolve.

Laurel did not let go of her for the longest time, knowing that when she did, it would be forever. Slowly, slowly, she peeled her arms off Sara, she scrubbed at her eyes but the tears kept falling. "It's not fair, Ollie. We…we just got her back. It's not fair."

He circled the table and put his arms around her. She crumpled against him. He held the back of her head as she cried on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said; throat thick, he didn't trust himself to say anymore.

Packing up the foundry that had been their home for years, whilst mourning Sara was asking too much of everyone. They moved to the second base, while keeping the foundry operational until further notice. Felicity called Lyla to check on Digg at Starling General and deliver the news. When she hung up she could already hear them bickering when Digg insisted on coming and helping.

More bad news followed when Roy returned…without Thea. Oliver proceeded to aimlessly lash out at the younger man. She didn't show up, Roy yelled back, her tracker went offline.

Oliver had been distant after he saw Sara. But a dark cloud hung over him then, and she didn't know if it would ever dissipate.

Felicity did what she could to monitor the private jets leaving Starling, and continuously checked (with mixed feelings) on the unconscious Artemis.

They were still arguing when she went to the roof. It was close to sunrise, Felicity found Laurel there gazing at the lightening sky, a gradient of blues. The freezing wind nipped at her ponytail, she carried a shawl to give to her.

"Did you call your dad?"

Laurel recoiled at the reminder. "Not yet," her throat was husky. "But I think this will kill him. Losing her the first time was hard, but now…so soon after…" she ran a hand over her face. When she removed it, her eyes were wet. She sniffed and took the shawl she offered.

A death in the family should unite them. But instead, they drifted miles apart from each other. She and her mother had come closer when her dad abandoned them. But Sara didn't pack her belongings and leave in the middle of the night. She's just…gone, because I asked her to go out there and save us…

"Come inside." It was lonely downstairs even with Oliver and Roy.

"I need a few more minutes." Felicity's shoulders fell and she started for the roof door.

"Thanks Felicity," she twisted her profile to her, "for just…being there, when I found her."

They found Artemis, Sara dead in her arms. They thought Artemis was gone too, until she weakly lifted her head to them and collapsed next to Sara.

She would be lying if she said she didn't feel cheated by a greater power that someone she loved was dead while someone she despised was still alive.

…

Oliver closed and opened his gloved fists, listening to the leather crinkle as he stared at Artemis on the slab; rage, resentment, heartache, coming together in violent collisions inside him. If he wasn't thinking about Sara, it was Thea. His mind always managed to be a few steps ahead of everyone when it came to envisioning the worst possibilities in a tight situation. And the connection between his sister and Sara was something he was unwilling to accept yet, if ever.

They kept Artemis under general anaesthesia after Felicity stabilized her. The tension was breaking the roof as they waited for her to wake and give them the answers they needed.

They were divided in their reaction to her presence; either they looked hopelessly at her unchanging condition or scorned that she had survived.

It had been out of respect that she was not chained to a hospital bed, but also because she was a danger to society. Maybe ARGUS could take her into Task Force X; she could become one of Amanda Waller's assets… just as he had been.

Why was he so conflicted? Why did he give a damn? So far she had attempted to kill several people, including him. But if the events of the previous night were any indication of her new allegiance, then she wasn't completely irredeemable. The conundrum hurt his skull as he focused on finding a way out of this, on a way forward, their next move. There was no room in his mind for the swelling in his chest to heal or for the grief in his heart.

"Where is she?" Laurel strode inside. Her blue-green eyes were puffy but they were filled with an unforgiving storm. Oliver was concerned of her ability to form correct judgement. Everyone was running on a high of overwhelming emotions and he had to be their anchor.

"She's asleep".

She was past caring about anything else but finding Sara's killer, the least of all the girl that had been a catalyst to her sister's death. She made a beeline for her. "I made a list of who could have done this. Talia tops that, followed by Merlyn."

She stared down at Artemis. She's alive and not my sister, he could practically read on her face. "Wake her up."

"We can't," said Roy. "A shot of adrenaline might kill her."

"Then we'll take the risk!" She slammed her palm on the table and went to the medical supplies. "I'm not wasting anymore time!"

He stood in her path. "Laurel."

She scowled at him. "Oliver—"

"You're angry—"

"If you tell me to leave, I'm going to take my anger out on your face."

He knew she could be a grenade in times like these. "If she dies," he said steadily, "then we'll have nothing; no one to use against them." He could hear her breathing through her nose. "I want justice too. And we'll get it. But you need to tell your father. And we...we need to say goodbye."

The knots in her shoulders loosened, she took a deep breath, withdrew a step. "I'll go. But don't push me out of this, or you'll regret it."

Laurel's Apartment

Guilt came to her as she packed Sara's personal effects into a box. Why did she do that? Give her that 'empowering' speech to leave the safe confines of her apartment and fight on the streets for what she believed in? It seemed so vapid now, so naïve, to think her sister was invincible.

She squeezed one of her plush toys, a shark from Sea World. She made fun of her for keeping the ragged old thing. Laurel's knees folded beneath her and she hugged it to her chest. They bickered the entire road trip there, pulled each other's hair, and laughed at dad's horrible singing as he blasted the Top 40 hits.

Sara was so brave sometimes she forgot how scared she could get when they were kids. She would take out a flashlight and freak her out in the middle of the night, timidly asking her to stop the branches scratching the window pane, or to check for monsters in the closet.

I was there. I could protect her.

Not this time.

"Where is she?"

Laurel let out a shrill scream and fell onto her butt. A dark-hooded figure loomed ten feet away.

They lowered their hood; "Where is Sara?" Nyssa demanded more vehemently.

Laurel exhaled the breath she held and stood on legs that shook like stilts. She told her the truth that even she had refrained from saying out loud like it was a curse; "She's dead."

Nyssa's face shut down, like watching someone who was stabbed finally realize they had a knife plunged into their spine. They didn't speak for a long moment. Laurel didn't know what to say to Nyssa, she had never been fond of her anyway; in fact, she never wanted to see another League assassin in Starling or near her family again. They had taken too much already.

"How?" Her voice cracked slightly.

"We found her with arrows in her chest."

Nyssa closed her eyes, lips pressed in a white line, trembling as she fought to maintain the severe composure of the demon's daughter.

"Where is she?"

"We haven't buried her yet." She didn't know where they would; Laurel reprobated laying her to rest in her grave from 2007. And she was dreading the talk with her father that had to happen. It felt like her entire life had come to a halt and she couldn't take another step forward.

"It's your fault; you made her return to the League," Laurel growled. There had always been this resentful little monster sleeping in the back of mind, who hated that Sara chose Nanda Parbat over them.

"There was already darkness inside of her," Nyssa intoned. Laurel was inclined to slap the demon's daughter for that response. The lives Sara had saved before her untimely death was proof that she still had the goodness inside her heart to persevere, to hold onto hope.

"I took her in when she was on the verge of death, and I loved her with all my heart."

Laurel couldn't repress it. Sara's real killer was gone and Nyssa was the only person in the vicinity she could lash out at. "You and your father and Artemis," she spat. "You showed her this kind of life and she went back there because that's where she thought she belonged!"

"I grieve too." She saw her teeth grit. "But now we must find who did this." Laurel held her tongue and listened.

Nyssa squashed her heartache and leveled her dark eyes with hers; "And get our retribution."

Consciousness came achingly slow. She heard voices bouncing off her ears in every direction. She had to wake up. It was a matter of survival. She was surrounded by enemies; she had to pretend to be asleep and listen to what they planned to do with her.

Artemis struggled to hold onto the shallow surface, to allow her other senses to heighten before her sight. But she shuddered in agony and her grip slipped away. She heard a groan in the distance. The pain escalated, rippling through her at once, she saw red-hot lava bursting from her subconscious.

Her eyes flew open.

She was curled into foetal position, a layer of sweat on her forehead. Someone had dressed her in a grey shirt that smelt like Oliver Queen. Disgusted, she wrenched it and saw the IV in her wrist. She didn't remember ever going to a hospital; she never would have gone on her own. She touched her chest, felt the wires and buttons of the ECG, the bandage wrapped around her waist. She pulled them off frantically as if they were roaches crawling on her skin.

Grabbing the bed railing she dragged her weight and rolled off, but her legs did not cooperate…

She fell flat on her face with a whack on concrete floor.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

One wrist was still attached to the railing by handcuffs and it was awkward for her to sit up with one hand.

Oliver winced to see her like that. She watched him like a cornered animal. He showed her his palms and then slowly turned one hand over to offer it. She tried once more to stand without his help, a final show of strength, but her efforts were wasted, leaving her winded.

His hand never left. She grabbed onto his forearm, and did not have the capacity to push him away when he gathered her into his arms, and lifted her onto the gurney they substituted for a hospital bed.

Hopefully she was too weak to escape the handcuffs. She was a ex-League assassin, who betrayed her brethren for him. She knew his secrets, their identities. They would demand her head if they knew she was alive. At the risk of her running her mouth, he couldn't exactly let her go either. He had to keep her here until they could discern where her loyalties lied, if she had any to begin with.

"Sara?" She asked very quietly.

"She's gone," he announced, sounding very loud in the lair. Those two words cemented the cold reality they lived in.

She shuddered, remembering, and blinked at the ceiling. It was not like refusing to meet his gaze would make him notice the tears any less.

One day…it'll be me on that metal slab. The people I love crying over me, looking to avenge me.

"I—" she paused, wiping her bottom lashes, "the Dark Archer…he did this. They, they're connected. Him and Talia."

"Figured as much."

"They...they got help from the same people. Did you get him at least?"

"He's gone. And he took someone important away from me, not just Sara."

"Thea?" She frowned and then widened her eyes. "Merlyn's the Dark Archer." Her grey eyes drifted over the place. "This isn't the foundry."

"Our safety was compromised. Too many of our enemies were aware of its location."

She gulped and titled her head to him, "What... what do you plan to do with me?"

"I haven't decided yet."

Artemis jerked her head in assent and they both fell silent. "Why…why save me?" Seeing her stripped from her black armor, injured and devastated, removed her quite a bit from the pedestal they put League members on.

"You did try to help us. You have information we need and because… it's what she would have wanted. She loved you. She never stopped believing in you. We told her she was wasting her time, she didn't listen."

"I... I just wanted to fix everything," she whispered breathlessly to herself more than to him.

If he could not mourn he could be angry; "You can't take back what you did," he vented.

Her bottom lip curled as she resisted the urge to bawl her eyes out. "I know…" He could see the vein pulsing in the side of her head as she blamed herself. "But it was…it was lie. All of it. I didn't—"

"What? Mean for this to happen? You want to say sorry? You can't. It's too late," he spat. She flinched in pain, deeper than the physical kind. He was causing it, but goddamn it she needed to be taught a lesson. Because. Well. Just, because. He folded his arms, glaring at her. Felicity looked at him from below her eyelashes, trying to gauge his emotions. His stomach fluttered and he tried to ignore her.

Artemis shook her head, her unwashed blonde hair shifting on the pallet as she moved. "I chose right in the end. I did," she croaked, a tear streaked from the corner of her eye, staining the pillow. "It—it wasn't a waste. It may have been too late… but it wasn't a waste."

She turned from him so he could not see her face anymore. Which he didn't mind, he had nothing more to say to her.

…

"You just found blood."

"Everywhere."

"But there were no bodies?"

"No," Roy snapped at Felicity. "God, how many times do I have to repeat myself?"

"Hey," Oliver warned.

"Sorry," he ducked his head and leaned on a pillar miserably.

"Why would she with go with Merlyn?" Asked Oliver, desperate to understand. "I don't get it. We just. We could have protected her."

"Isn't it obvious?"

The three of them turned to Artemis, who had woken up once more to look at them. The colour had returned to her cheeks. After ripping open her stitches before, she refrained from moving on the gurney.

"Please, enlighten us," Oliver bit out coldly.

She sniffed, spoke with composure and remoteness; "You're skipping over the details of the crime scene at the apartment. She killed those assassins who came after her."

He had been waiting for someone to suggest it, just so it had to be the one person who wasn't on his team.

"I examined the place inside and out—"

"Then you were only seeing the things you wanted to see," she grew more frustrated, which was a one-eighty shift from the helpless, crying girl she was an hour ago. "Two bodies; at the kitchen and by the window. The poker, the broken furniture, the missing knives. For God's sake; the three of us are archers." Her hard grey eyes swept over Roy and Oliver. "You think all that blood came from a few arrows? You think Malcolm wouldn't have left the Leaguers there just to mock us, if he was the one who ended them?" The effort to put edge into her tone was too much for her. She wheezed, grimacing.

"Thea has a good heart," he automatically declared. "She would never kill anyone."

She sighed in exasperation, fighting off the pain-meds to keep talking to them; "If—If they were attacking her. If she had been trained by Malcolm to cross that line... then she wouldn't have been able to stop herself. Even if it was in self-defense, she...she must feel guilty. Withdrawal and escapism is not an uncommon reaction."

Oliver stood out of his stool, struck his hand down to end this psychoanalysis of his sister. "I don't want to hear it. Thea isn't capable of murdering someone even it was in self-defense."

"You. You don't know that." Artemis had no right to be fed up with them. "You should be glad she was able to fight and come out of that assault alive."

"She told me Merlyn saved her."

She closed her eyes, exhausted with explaining this to him. "Believe that if you want… I know each of you resents every breath I take; but my explanation... is the only reasonable one." Perhaps an impartial vote was what they needed, but she was making Thea out to be someone like her. Artemis had her whole life to become an assassin, but Thea wasn't raised like that.

"Your sister chose this life," she continued, sedately, knowing exactly what she was talking about. "She went to him and asked him for this. He... trained her just as we were trained. She needs to learn to live with this."

"No," his jaw worked back and forth. "No. She shouldn't have too." Kill to survive? That was no world his sister deserved to live in.

"She will kill again," Artemis added to his growing agitation. Roy was starting to get restless where he stood and Felicity wore an uneasy expression. "And, it won't be in self-defense next time. She'll do it because it's a necessity. I...I know this feeling, training League style... taking your first life. Sara felt this way too," her eyelids started to droop but she went on; "You're in denial... at first, but then eventually, you start to accept that it is now a part of you. And it becomes... easier."

"She's not a killer," he shouted, startling Roy and Felicity. "There has to be another explanation." There had to be. If there wasn't, then he had failed her, failed his mother and father. He must still have that to hold onto; that even if Thea was lost she wasn't lost forever.

Artemis didn't flinch, the pain meds becalmed her and made her unfeeling to their harshness. She turned and stared at the ceiling slowly fading back into her dreams; "Everyone has the potential, Oliver."

...

After the drugs put her back to sleep, he turned to Felicity. She lifted her head apologetically. "I'm sorry... but you do have a blind spot when it comes to your family, Oliver."

Someone behind them cleared their throat, breaking their circle of three. Nyssa Al Ghul stood in their base; even in mourning she could hold an intimidating stance. He never liked her, didn't understand what Sara saw in her.

"How did you find us?"

"She brought me here." Laurel entered behind her. Oliver frowned at Laurel. More assassins randomly dropping by their new lair was the very last thing he needed. Laurel running to Nyssa for answers, instead of relying on him, only added salt to the wound.

Nyssa eyes never stopped sweeping the place, they zoned in on who she was looking for. She half-shoved Roy to the floor with fortitude to get to the sleeping Artemis. Oliver rushed forward to reach her. "Wait—!" She plunged a syringe of clear liquid into Artemis' heart before he could stop her.

She woke with a start, surging upright until the handcuffs indented her skin. Her eyes bulged out of their sockets. Nyssa ruthlessly clamped a hand around her throat and slammed her horizontal.

"You! You let this happen. She's dead because of you and Talia!"

"She lied..." she spoke in strangled wisps. "I—I didn't…you don't understand—"

"So you wanted revenge," she tightened her hold until Artemis was red, her air supply fully cut off. "Was it worth it?!"

Felicity could not remain in her seat and watch Artemis suffer. Despite their rocky history, she was weak and harmless, and Felicity wasn't cruel. She did not save the girl's life only to have it ended by Nyssa. "Okay that's enough! Stop it! You're going to kill her!" Nyssa shoved her away before she could get within four feet of them.

"She's a traitor!" She snarled.

Oliver pointed an arrow at her. She whipped her head and looked daggers at him. "Let. Her. Go."

Artemis tried beating Nyssa's arms with feeble fists. "Why?" The Al Ghul demanded, but without the savagery from before.

"We need her." He didn't know what for, but he just knew they did. He knew that she was the only one of them who saw the truth from the get go. And Felicity was right; he did have a blind spot when it came to his family. It was his mother and the Undertaking all over again, and it was the same man corrupting his loved ones.

Nyssa cried out the last of her wrath and released her. Artemis rolled onto her side gasping like she meant suck every gallon of air in the room. The Al Ghul merely stared vacantly at her. "I was prepared to leave it all behind her for," she murmured, wiping the back of her hand against her eyes.

Felicity dashed to Artemis and held her arms and shoulders, muttering soothing words and searching for morphine to inject into the IV. She's truly the best of us he thought.

The Al Ghul continued staring at the young assassin, he couldn't place what she felt;

"I release you from your vows Al-Sayad, now you are nothing."

Artemis grimaced and shut her eyes, as the morphine numbed the pain. Nyssa spun on her heel and stormed to the exit, no one stopped her.

He went after her before she could leave. "Where will you go from here?"

"Find my sister and put an arrow between her eyes," she snarled viciously. "Find Merlyn afterwards and kill him."

He had no choice but to tell her the truth, "My sister is with him."

Nyssa arched a brow, Merlyn's motivations became clearer to her then. "There were rumors he had another child. That was Thea?"

"You don't owe me anything. But I can't let you go after Merlyn if it puts my sister in your harm's way."

"She's already in danger just by being by his side," she crossed her arms, challenging. "Tell me, did she choose to be?"

He knew what she was implying, there was no use trying to appeal to the sympathetic side of Nyssa. Only warnings would have any sway with her, he pointed at her chest. "You will not harm a single hair on her head. Understood?"

She uncrossed her arms, unflinching at his threat. "If she tries to protect Malcolm. Then I won't have a choice. You should pray she hasn't been brainwashed like how Artemis was manipulated by Talia."

"She isn't brainwashed," he growled.

But he only gave her more ammo to fire another valid point, "so the alternative is that she wanted to follow him?"

"Don't harm her, she's innocent," he kept himself steady, stern, he didn't want to depreciate himself and beg for it. "If not for me, do it for Sara." He was ashamed to use her memory, but Thea had thought of Sara like a sister. He may have not known Sara as well as he thought he did, but family meant something to her, or else why would she have warned him about Thea and Merlyn in Corto Maltese if she never cared?

Nyssa conceded to his request, "Fine." Though she would have preferred to have free reign with this. "But the darkness devours us all eventually, Oliver Queen. And now it has its teeth in your sister."

She glanced at Artemis and then at him. "If you ask me, whatever happens next, she may outlive us all."

"Why?"

"She is free," she said softly, wishfully, now that her own dreams were crushed. "That was the only thing Sara ever wanted for her."

"Were you really going to leave the League?"

She smiled sadly; "I would've gone anywhere with Sara."

Starling Cemetery

They were a black ring around the grave. The night wind battered them mercilessly. The last funeral he had attended was Tommy's. It had been too much to take in at once. His best friend was somewhere here too. His laughter and his smile still rung in Oliver's head as if he'd heard them yesterday.

When he thought he might break, Felicity squeezed his hand, silent tears streamed down her cheeks. Everyone bowed their head. No one really knew what to say. He tentatively cleared his throat; "Sara Lance." His eyes swept over them; Felicity beside him, Roy helping Digg stand with crutches, Laurel staring down at the casket emptily.

"It's not right for me to stand here and talk like I knew what she'd been through. But what I do know is that whether you knew her as the Canary or as Sara, she was a hero." Felicity's grip tightened.

"We may have been apart. But she never stopped protecting us. Everything we do from now on, we owe it to our friend. So many people would not be here today if it wasn't for Sara, and we're grateful for her." He stopped before he choked.

Felicity grip softened around his until she let go. Oliver bent and took a handful of soil from a pile of cold, damp, earth and threw it on the casket. Roy and Diggle followed suit.

Laurel swallowed a sob, shook her head slowly. "She doesn't get a fresh grave?" She looked to him for an answer.

His heart sank a little. "She deserves a proper burial, she's earned it."

"It's...it's not fair," she sniffed, tears blinking into her eyes. "No one will ever really know who she was. She's gone, and no one will know what she did, her sacrifice. It's not fair."

Even though Diggle was injured, he had the strength to defy the odds and attend. He looked at Laurel considerately. "Laurel, we'll know," he said. "We will never forget."

The ceremony ended soon afterwards. It was short, isolated; it felt like less than what it was supposed to be. The crowd dispersed lifelessly, listlessly, one by one.

Oliver was second to last, before Laurel. He meant to go see his mother and Tommy. As he walked away he turned to the grove of trees not far off from Sara's grave. The wind whistled through the leaves forming dappled patterns on the earth.

"I had a feeling you would come." He found Artemis leaning on the trunk of an oak, her body positioned to watch the ceremony but remain hidden. She hugged the place on her stomach where the bandages were. It must have taken a toll to fight off the morphine and get herself to stand and come here.

She stared ahead. "I thought it would more appropriate for me to stay away." Her eyes were red rimmed, tired, face solemn yet serene.

"Do you know where you'll go next?

Her cheek twitched and a breeze stirred her hair across her brow. "I don't know. The League thinks I'm dead. They won't see me coming."

"Using revenge to fuel your purpose in life will leave you unfulfilled. If you want to fight you should fight for something more."

He expected an eye roll, a rebuff that would further distinguish their ideologies. But she surprised him; "Sara said similar phrases to me before she died. She said, 'do right by them'. I assume it means all of you," she glanced at him sideways. "She told me to end this." Her eyes hardened, "and I'm not going to stop until I've destroyed them."

Had he ever been like that? Hell-bent on destruction? It was cliché advice but stalwart; "Killing Talia won't bring her back."

The wind started to howl; leaves ripped of their stems and swirled in the air around them. But they didn't notice. She leaned off the trunk, arms crossed against the chill and in indignation. "I'm not letting her get away with this. And you shouldn't let Malcolm have control over you or your sister."

He didn't have it in himself to be angry anymore. She was right, but easier said than done. And what about the promises he made to Starling? "My city is dying," he stated, acknowledging it, but also hoping she would understand why he was torn. "But I want to see the men responsible get what they deserve. That includes Malcolm and Talia."

Her brow was furrowed in thought; she threaded her fingers through her hair. "If the League taught me anything is that we replace evil with death." He recalled what she said to him when he tied her up in the foundry. If you told him that they would be having a civilized conversation now, pontificating good and evil in a cemetery after a loved one's funeral; he would have called you insane.

"There are bad men like you and I; we lie, and we hurt and kill people for a greater good." He couldn't disagree with her, God knows he deserved a ring in hell for the things he's done. "And then you have true evil. I've seen it Oliver," she swallowed, met his eyes. "I pretended not too. But now I can't stop looking."

This was either the worst idea he ever had or the best. "You could help us," he was not entirely sure if he was talking or if he was a mouthpiece for someone crazier. Nonetheless, he charged on; "I know you know exactly what that evil is and how to get to it. Your father is a HIVE enforcer."

He struck an exposed nerve. He had come on too strong. She looked prepared to retreat from him, "How do you know that?" She asked defensively.

"Nyssa gave me your backstory." He wasn't making this decision solely based on the events of the past few months, but also on the kind of life she led.

Artemis turned her shoulder to him, feigning nonchalance that was too gruff. "Why should it matter?"

"Because I have an offer for you; stay, help me defend my city."

First there was confusion, as if she did not hear him properly, then plain shock; "What? Are you serious?" He nodded. "You-You trust me to defend it?"

"I think you're willing to learn. And I think you're fed up with others dictating your life for you." She looked at the ground. He sighed, the pain in his chest dulling. "Despite your nurturing, Sara believed you had humanity, the kind you can't learn away. I've struggled with mine too." Sara was understanding and intuitive like that. He should have trusted her judgement more.

When he thought of the members of his team, he could see each of them struggling with their own darkness. Some were more obvious than others; Laurel and her rage-fuelled revenge, Roy with Jason and succumbing to his guilt over murdering that police officer.

And him; trying to draw the line in the sand, to be a hero to his city, a brother to his sister, saving his own soul and hers.

"Let me mentor you."

"Why?" Artemis asked. Hopeful yet restrained, as if by saying yes too soon, this would be ripped from her before she got the chance to make anything out of it.

"I see potential in you."

She bit her lip, considered it, then she shook her head. "Your teammates wouldn't want me around. Do you see me and Felicity being besties? Braiding each other's hair? Roy and I sparring without killing each other?"

He smiled ruefully. He knew what their reactions would be, but with careful explanation he was confident they would turn around, at least try. They all had to take leaps of faith, needed to make drastic changes if they wanted to see the end of this. Sara wanted her to continue. And if the world would never know the woman beneath the Canary mask. Then they would fight in her name. Honour her memory.

"They will understand."

"You seriously believe that?"

"You don't have to fight them alone." He outstretched his hand for her to shake, she looked doubtfully at it and then back at him. "We can defeat them together, Artemis, if you join me."

Atlantic Ocean

She plugged in her seatbelt; it would be the only thing stopping her from launching herself at Merlyn, sitting across from her in the private jet. Ready for any setting, Malcolm was in a suit and overcoat, and a blue tie that matched his eyes. She was still in her hood and tactical suit, it was uncomfortable but she couldn't bring herself to take it off.

"You knew Oliver was the Arrow," she clawed the armrests. "You kept that from me. You were supposed to be the one who was honest with me, and you lied to my face!"

"Don't be irrational, Thea," he was passive, but chiding. In the months she trained under him, never had he treated her like a child.

"You tried to drive a wedge between us."

He titled his head to the left, "I never lied to you; I was merely waiting for your brother to tell you the truth himself." His brows hardened, "Did he?"

"No," she admitted grudgingly. "I found out on my own."

He leaned forward in his seat, elbows resting on his knees, hands balled in front of him. "Now, I understand you've been through a lot these past 24 hours." She was reminded of a family counselor her mother tried get them to talk too.

After the lies, after what she had been driven to do, she barked an ironic laugh; "You think you understand but you don't."

"Yet you're here, with me," he shook off noncommittally. "Because you think I'll understand better than your brother, or any of the other people you left behind."

Left behind. Oh God. She doubled over her seatbelt and wrapped herself with her arms, feeling like she wanted to be sick all over Malcolm's Italian leather shoes. Closing her eyes she had nightmares, opening them and her life was the nightmare. There was no disconnecting the horrors for her anymore. Everything she had been afraid to do, to become, she had become.

"I don't know," she murmured, shaking her head. "I never wanted this to happen."

"It's a difficult thing; taking a life." His voice rung in her skull clear as day. "Now; it feels like a noose around your neck that you have to walk with for the rest of your life. But I assure you, it gets easier."

The reassuring, understanding father act didn't even last a minute. She leaned back into her seat. "You're a psychopath, you know that?"

He held her gaze, and said calmly, softly; "No more than you are."

Her breathing stalled and she stared out the plane window. Streaks of water colored clouds seeped into the night. When she and Oliver were younger, their parents often took them to extended holidays to Europe. She used to sit next to him in the plane, tell him how she wanted to be a princess in a castle made of clouds in the sky. She wished she had that innocence again.

"He told me he tried to kill you."

"Are you glad he failed? Or disappointed? You can tell me. I prefer honesty too." He leaned back in his own seat, his face an icy blanket. "I can turn this jet around and deposit you back in Starling, if that's where you want to be."

Thea folded her arms and settled against the head rest, still staring out the window. She licked the scab on her lip, the cut on her cheek stung. When she spoke she was a million miles away, watching herself in detached horror. "The woman—the Canary, I watched the whole fight. I chose to stay out of it for as long as I could. When she tackled you, I had a clear shot of both of you." Her eyes skirted to Malcolm briefly, she could have sworn she saw a vein in his temple twitch.

"And I thought about it, in that moment; killing you, for lying to me, for all the terrible things you've done." She folded her bottom lip between her teeth, chewing at the scab. "Like maybe for once in my life I could've done something good for the rest of the world by putting you down. Be a hero like my brother."

"Hmm. I suppose you have to draw the line somewhere."

She hated him as much as she hated herself. But she reckoned she would put a real noose around her neck if she had chosen the path of patricide. Even after what she had done, she still didn't think she deserved to die, despite how she loathed herself. She wanted to live, to find a way out of this.

"Killing me would not have made you a hero, Thea. I'm a little disappointed that discovering your brother's secret has made you think of yourself in that light."

"I did, for a second," she took his disappointment with a pinch of salt. "But the world is no place for heroes," she repeated his lesson. There was a long, tense silence. "Did I kill her?"

"I don't know."

"How...how can you be so calm?" She exploded, stabbing accusingly at him. "So okay with what I did? I never flinched; showed no mercy. You—you're meant to be my father, you should care more!" A sob broke and died in her throat.

"When we started this you said we're not family."

They had circled this post many times over the course of the eight months, but he had never thrown back to that first meeting in the limo.

"Well. We are."

Malcolm knew she was struggling. But he had dissolved the memory of Robert Queen from her mind. Now, she could finally accept him as her father, but more importantly; the kind of father he was. She had no expectations of him beyond what he was already giving.

She breathed out after the outburst; "You were my best chance of getting out of there and surviving whoever's after me, after us."

"Good. You're learning," he said curtly. "You've always had this incredible strength inside you, Thea. I'd hate to see it diminish because you're allowing this guilt you feel to gnaw it away."

"Except I feel like I'm losing who I am."

"You're not," he reassured her, she stared at him with bloodshot eyes, grasping onto his words. "Our fates are governed by the choices we make. You're merely discovering who you truly are. You never lost anything."

A/N: *sniffs* Oh god, so depressing. I promise we'll get back to the action next chapter. Expect HK flashbacks, Ra's Al Ghul, Talia vs Nyssa, and Artemis' integration into Team Arrow, which should be interesting. See you :)