Destiny Rewritten

Chapter 13

Thea was currently pouting in her room, since she was still grounded when her mother entered her room.

"Come to visit me in my imprisonment." Thea asked.

"You know Thea, there are worse places to be stuck in. Your room isn't exactly short on luxuries." Moira said, since even though she'd taken Thea's TV, computer and phone from her room, it was far from having nothing to do.

"What do you want mom?" Thea asked.

"To find out if you want to wear the Calvin Klein or the Zac Posen?" Moira said as she held out two different dresses for Thea to choose.

"For dinner?" she said, confused. "I was just going to wear pajamas."

"To Walter's stock auction." Moira explained.

Thea groaned as she responded "I think I'd rather be grounded."

"No, it's important that you come." Moira pressed on.

"Important to whom?"

"To me." Moira insisted. Thea looked up at her incredulously, and then turned back to her phone. Moira sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, putting a hand on Thea's arm. "All right, listen to me. When you were four years old, you came home one day with a cat. It was a stray, it was filthy, and it was mean. But you stood there and you declared that it was coming to live with us. Your father came home from the office and he saw what was going on, and he sat you down and he explained to you that the cat was in fact a tiger and that we needed to get it home. And somehow you understood." Thea smiled slightly at the memory. "Robert was always so good at getting through to you." She continued. "I... I was always so jealous of that." She admitted.

"That was the first time you talked about dad in years." Thea said, tears welling up in her eyes.

"I think we've both gotten into some bad habits over the years and I know I wasn't much of a mother to you. I was so caught up in my own grief and I wasn't there for you when you needed me to be." Moira said.

"I could've made it easier for you. I just wanted the pain to stop and drinking and drugs, that made it go away. And then I just couldn't stop." Thea said as Moira pulled her daughter into her arms.

"Thea, I understand you wanted the pain to end. But Oliver's back now and it's hurting us to watch you go through this. I know we can't go back to change things, but please, let's work on making a better future." Moira said.

"Okay, which dress would you prefer I wore." Thea said, since for the first time in years, she truly felt like her mother cared about her again.

Moira smiled as they began planning out her outfit.

Oliver had returned to Felicity's cubicle and was honestly thinking about talking to Walter about promoting her, since he what she could do and he knew her talents were being wasted.

"You called me?" Oliver asked.

"Yes, I managed to salvage some of the data on the hard drive." Felicity said as she pulled up images on to her screen.

"It looks like blueprints." She said.

"Do you know what of?" Oliver asked.

"The Exchange Building." Felicity said.

"Never heard of it." Oliver lied.

"It's where the Unidac industry's auction is scheduled to take place." Felicity explained, not knowing that Oliver already knew this.

"Thank you Felicity." Oliver said, since he didn't need to know the rest of the information he'd asked her for the first time.

"Can I ask you one thing?" Felicity asked.

"Depends on what it is?" Oliver asked.

"How did you get a computer from one of your family's company's rivals?" Felicity asked.

"Long story." Oliver said simply as he walked away.

Oliver had just finished getting ready to head to the auction when his elevator dinged, signifying that someone had just come up. Thinking it was Diggle, Oliver didn't give much thought to it until he saw who'd exited it. Laurel, who'd recently got her cast off, was standing the walkway, wearing a stunning silver dress.

"I didn't think you were gonna come." Oliver said.

"Well, I thought about it and I think I'm ready to go public with our new relationship to. Especially since Tommy seems to keep on hitting on me." Laurel said, rolling her eyes.

"Did you tell your dad about the tip I gave you?" Oliver asked, since he'd told Laurel about Warren Patel after he'd left Queen Consolidated.

"Yeah, though now he suspects I have a connection to the Green Arrow, which technically, I do." Laurel said.

"If he tries to use you to get to me, I will kill him. I'm sorry but if he puts you in danger." Oliver said.

"He wouldn't. Despite everything, he'd never put me in danger." Laurel said.

"I hope so. For his sake." Oliver said as he held out his arm, which Laurel then took.

"Let's go. And do you have your work clothes with you?" Laurel asked and Oliver nodded.

"It's designed to be easily concealable under my clothes for cases like this one." Oliver said, opening his dress shirt slightly to reveal his green arrow suit underneath.

"Nice." Laurel said as he buttoned his shirt back up and they headed out.