The Emerald

Chapter 11 - Explanations

At the comment from Roy, comparing Thea and Felicity, everyone in the lair started to laugh. Leave it to Roy to lighten the mood even when hurt. Diggle thought to himself as his younger Teammate started to try to stand up from the table.

"Roy, are you sure you should be standing up?" Thea asked as she held his arm, trying to help steady him.

"I'm fine Thea." Roy replied in answer to her question.

"I swear... If you guys don't stop using that word I'm going to..." Thea started to yell.

"You're going to what?" Roy asked interrupting her, a smile on his face at the thought of what she could be thinking.

"I'm going to put an arrow through your knee!" Thea declared as she pulled herself to her full height.

Oliver couldn't help the smile that spread across his face at that declaration. If she's so insistent on it, maybe I should work with her on her archery. Oliver thought to himself, amused at the prospect of making yet another person slap a bowl of water.

"How are you going to do that? You don't even know how to shoot an arrow!" Roy challenged as he pulled himself to his full height in response.

"Oh really?" Thea answered back with a look that said 'I know something you don't know'. "Care to bet on that?" She asked her boyfriend, much to the amusement of everyone else in the lair.

"Roy, are you sure that challenging Thea is smart?" Sin asked as she stepped towards her friends. "I mean it's not like you're in any condition to fight back right now."

Roy glared at Sin. She was supposed to be his friend, on his side. Instead she was defending Thea and laughing at him. He turned to Oliver as the older man put a hand on his shoulder.

"Roy." Oliver said in a not so quiet whisper, a huge grin on his face. "You do know that Thea took archery in school right?"

"What?!" Roy asked incredulously.

"Yep, got pretty good at it too." Thea bragged, enjoying the look of confusion and disbelief on Roy's face.

"Okay guys, as much fun as it is to watch you two argue, Thea we need to get going." Felicity said as she stepped up to the couple as well. "Don't we have an appointment with Raisa about the menu for the reception?"

It took a full minute before Thea finally tore her eyes away from Roy, finally backing down from the challenge that she apparently wanted to make good on.

"Yeah, we should go." Thea reluctantly agreed. "Are you going to be okay?" She asked Roy as she placed her hand on his arm gently, suddenly worried again.

"I'll be..." Roy started to say 'fine' but changed his mind at the glare from Thea. "...alright."

"Digg and I will keep an eye on him Thea." Oliver told his sister. "Sara, will you go with Thea, Felicity, and Sin back to the mansion please?" Oliver had posed it as a question but Sara would know that the reason he had asked was so that they would have someone for security purposes.

"Sure, I'm getting hungry anyway." Sara answered with a small smile to the women. She had a feeling that Oliver wanted to talk to Roy and knew that the fewer people present the better it would be for the kid. It took some tugging and a lot of convincing but Thea finally, reluctantly, left after giving Roy another quick hug and kiss and telling him to listen to her brother and rest.

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Roy could not have explained how nervous he was if he had had to. He watched the women leave the lair and knew that his lifeline had just walked out the door. He was sure Oliver and Diggle were going to kill him, and he deserved it. Especially after he went without the Team, knowing that they wouldn't want him to go alone. It was just that after he had thought about it for a while he had realized that this wasn't their fight. It was his. It wasn't fair to let the Team get dragged into the mess that was his past. He stood, head down and hands in his pockets, as he waited for the tongue lashing that he knew was coming. He didn't have to wait long.

"What the hell were you thinking Roy?" Oliver said in a raised voice once he was sure the women were gone. He wasn't exactly yelling, but he was pissed enough that it was close. "Why did you go face him alone? You know that no one goes to any kind of meet alone. Especially with an armed and dangerous weapons and drug dealer. Roy he could have killed you!"

"Oliver." Diggle said as he tried to calm his Teammate. He knew why Oliver was so mad, but he also knew that yelling at Roy right now, considering his past, was the last thing that the kid needed.

Oliver took a deep breath and walked a few steps away as he tried to reign in his anger. He knew Digg was right, yelling wasn't going to help the situation. It's not like Roy didn't realize that going alone was stupid. He had the bruises to prove that it was.

"Why'd you do it?" Oliver asked, voice no longer raised, as he turned back to the young man. "Why did you go alone when you know we would have gone with you?"

Roy stood silently for a few breaths. He deserved Oliver's anger. He had disobeyed longstanding Team rules, they never went to meets like that without backup. The bruises on his body were proof of the precise reason why too. He knew that Oliver's anger was justified. He swallowed hard, shifting his gaze from his shoes to a spot on the far wall of the lair, still not making eye contact with either man in front of him.

"I didn't want you involved." Roy whispered in explanation.

"Why?" Diggle asked quietly. "Why didn't you want us involved all of a sudden when just yesterday you were asking for us to back you up?" He knew that they needed to understand what had changed Roy's mind if they were going to figure out how to help the young man.

"Felicity." Roy whispered again as he shifted his weight.

"What?" Oliver asked, confused, as he took a step closer to Roy.

"Felicity." Roy finally looked up and met Oliver's confused gaze as he tried to get his emotions under control. "She's like a sister to me. You and she, you've spent the last six months happier than I've ever seen you, in spite of Merlyn and Slade. You've grown closer, you admitted to each other that you love each other, you even proposed last month. You're getting married Oliver and I've never seen her happier the whole time I've known you guys."

Roy took another deep breath, well, as deep as his bruised ribs would allow. "I couldn't be the reason that something happened to either of you, not now. I went alone because I know what my dad does, he beats people until he gets his way and sometimes he does it just because. Now he's in town hunting you so he can kill you. If you had gone with me I would have been handing you over to him. How do you think Felicity would have felt if you had been injected with the Vertigo again? Or captured? Or Killed? She would have never forgiven me." Roy looked down to his shoes again. "I can't let him hurt you guys. You're my Team and the only real family I have ever known. I can't, won't, let him destroy this family, not if I can help it!"

Oliver was speechless. He had not been expecting that answer from Roy and from the look in Diggle's eye his partner hadn't either. It seemed that Roy was more like him that he had previously thought.

"Look, I know you're mad and if you want to beat the crap out of me for disobeying orders then go ahead." Roy said as he stared at a spot on the wall again. "It's not like I'm not used to it." He whispered quietly to himself.

"Roy." Oliver said softly as he placed a hand cautiously on the young man's shoulder, waiting for Roy to look at him before continuing.

"I am not your father, and no one on this Team will ever hit you out of anger!"