Teamwork

Chapter 23 - Thea

"Thea!" Oliver called to his sister. She seemed to have spaced out and that worried Oliver.

"Oliver?" Thea asked. She had not noticed that her brother had woken up and was relieved to hear his voice, despite how raspy it was. "Oliver are you okay?"

"I'm fine Thea." Oliver responded to his sister's questions. "Where is Detective Lance?"

"I don't know." Thea answered, recognizing the worry in Oliver's voice. "Slade knocked him out and carried him out of the room right after you passed out. I have no idea where he went."

Oliver was worried for Lance. He knew the man had to be in quite a lot of pain and if Slade had taken him somewhere Oliver shuddered to think about what he could be going through, again. He decided, however, to focus on something he could do something about as he heard his sister sniffling as if she had been crying. He looked at her closely and realized that he was right, Thea had been crying.

"Thea? Are you okay? Did Slade hurt you?" Oliver asked, now very concerned for his sister.

"What?" Thea asked quietly, surprised. "No, Ollie. Slade didn't hurt me. But he hurt you. Are you okay?!" Thea asked as she suddenly realized that Oliver hadn't really answered her question the first time.

"I'm fine Thea." Oliver said as calmly as he could. The last thing he wanted was to worry her.

"How can you be fine?" Thea asked, confused as to how he thought he could be fine after she had seen Slade do that to him. "Slade just whipped you, your back looks like it went through a meat grinder, you are bleeding really bad, and you're telling me that you are FINE?!" Thea said, as she raised her voice until she was now yelling at Oliver.

Oliver couldn't help the small smile that he allowed to cross his face. He had heard this argument before, from another woman in his life, and he thought it was funny that Thea and Felicity were so much alike.

"Thea, I promise, I'm okay!" Oliver said sincerely, trying to convince his sister. "Yes, my back hurts, but it's nothing that won't heal. I promise! I'm fine!"

"Oliver?" Thea asked after a moment of looking at her brother. "How could you be quiet? When he was whipping you? It had to have hurt like hell and you didn't say a word, didn't make a sound. In fact, it didn't even look like he was hurting you. How did you do that?" She wanted to know how in the world he had gone through that so quietly, without even a hint that he was in pain.

"Thea..." Oliver started thoughtfully, trying to decide just how much to disclose to his sister at this moment. "You know I have scars. You've seen them. Did you never wonder how I got them?"

"Yes, I have." Thea responded, clearly remembering the first time she saw those scars. "Don't you remember me asking what happened?"

"Yes, I do." Oliver said after a moment, remembering her walking in on him as he was putting his shirt on shortly after he got back from Lian Yu.

"You told me then you didn't want to talk about it. That you weren't ready yet." Thea reminded her brother. She then remembered their conversation out by the tombstones for her father and brother a few minutes after that. She had told him that he would eventually have to talk about it, let someone in. Maybe now he'll let me in. She thought as Oliver began to speak again.

"I wasn't alone on the Island." Oliver began quietly, knowing that would catch her interest.

"Then why did you tell everyone that you were?" Thea asked, confused as to why he had chosen to keep this a secret from them, from her.

"Because if I told everyone that I was not alone on the Island then they would want to know more." Oliver said slowly, wanting her to realize that he was being as honest as he could with her right now. "My time on the Island, what happened to me there. They are not things I like to talk about. Nothing good happened there Speedy. Only one bad thing after another and I didn't want to burden you guys with knowing what I went through. You were dealing with me being back after you thought I was dead. That was enough of a shock for you to handle. I didn't want to make me being home harder on you, and everyone else."

"What happened?" Thea asked. She was now looking at the scars on her brother's body again and could not help the curiosity.

"Thea..." Oliver said almost pleadingly.

"No, you asked me if I ever wondered about your scars." Thea responded, making it clear she was not going to back down. "You can't start a conversation and not finish it!"

"You're right." Oliver conceded. "You do deserve to know more." He paused a moment to try and take a full breath, to steady himself, before he continued.

"There were others on the Island. Some were friends and some were not." Oliver started to explain cautiously. "There were several times I was captured and tortured for information."

Thea gasped. She knew that he had to have been through a lot to get those scars, but she never imagined that he was tortured. She looked into her brother's eyes and saw the sadness there. She decided that she didn't want to know any more about the torture right now. I'm seeing enough of that as is. She thought to herself. She then decided to try a different approach, to change the topic.

"Who were your friends?" Thea asked cautiously. "Were they rescued with you?" She jumped when the door slammed open before Oliver could answer.

"No Thea, they weren't rescued with him." Slade said in his thick Australian accent. "Everyone who was considered his friend on the Island is dead because he turned his back on them."

Felicity practically did a happy dance. Just as Sara was finishing taping up the last of the Detectives ribs her monitor came back to life with the video feed from the 'Torture Room'. They watched for just a moment before Oliver woke up again and Felicity could finally breathe.

"Guys!" Felicity called to the rest of the people in the lair. She knew the Team would want to see what was happening.

Diggle listened as Thea and Oliver started to talk and could not help his laughter as Oliver said that he was fine and then Thea's response to that explanation. He knew that his partner was in a massive amount of pain from his back and was thankful that he was still able to hide it from his sister.

Sara watched Oliver closely as he started to talk about his scars with Thea. Frankly she was surprised that Thea hadn't asked about them before, but then realized that the young woman had only seen them twice, and once was when he had a multitude of new injures to camouflage them. As she listened to Oliver's explanation of how he got them her heart ached. She knew some of the stories, but had never asked him for details on the rest. It was something that you just didn't do.

Felicity jumped in her chair with a cry when Slade barged back into the room. She knew what other things he had planned and she was worried about what he would try next. Her questions were answered though when, after he finished speaking, a couple of other men brought in a mostly vertical board on wheels, not much different than what Laurel was bound to by the Dollmaker, with someone tied to it. The tension in the lair returned, as well as Felicity's shakes, when they turned the board around.

Slade had brought in Roy, and he was unconscious.