"Tired of empty conversation

'Cause no one hears me anymore"

DEMI LOVATO - 'Anyone'

.                        .                       .

See it went something like this:

Months and months after Cali buried the only thing she had of her son's - the numerous scans that had once proved his existence - Michael lost his temper. It wasn't a rare occurrence, which was why Cali wasn't already reaching for the phone to call Tommy, but it was the first time Michael hit her without the intention of apologising. His anger was a frightful thing when unleashed, and it hadn't been until then that Cali had been exposed to it so completely.

His grip was bruising in her hair, her forearms battered and discoloured as she tried to shield her face from his blows. He was never usually so violent with her, was never usually one for straight out physical violence. He hit her where it could be seen, without any care of what would happen afterwards. What the effects would be.

He hit her and he pulled her hair and he spat such horrible things. Terrible things, about Gabriel, about her brother, about herself and the things she did wrong.

Cali wrenched her arm away once the blood began to trail from her forehead to her chin, stifling her instinctual gasp as her right arm jarred. "Stop," she pleaded, voice a ruined mess.

Michael stepped back, chest heaving. "You don't tell anyone about this," he said lowly. "You keep your damn mouth shut."

Cali hugged her right arm to her chest protectively, scrambling to her feet. "I'm leaving," she said, trying to sound brave and failing miserably, but she didn't back down. Not this time. She was supposed to be worth more than this.

Michael's teeth gleamed - for a moment, Cali was worried he was going to pounce again. But no, he backed down. His anger was too uncontrolled right now. "You tell nobody," he repeated viciously, but slumped down on the couch. "Come back tomorrow."

"What do you want me to say to Thea?"

"You're going to see that junkie?"

"Michael!" Cali snapped. He could beat her as much as he wanted. He could rip chunks of her hair out, he could cut her off from her family, he could love her until he didn't anymore, but he couldn't talk about Thea. Not about Thea's drug problems. "Her brother is dead. Don't do that to her."

Don't ruin the one good thing Cali had left in her life. God knew she had nobody else left. If Michael took this away from her, took Thea away from her like he'd taken Tommy away, Cali would wither up and die.

Oliver would've stopped this before it even began.

Oliver was fucking dead.

Michael shook his head. "You're so damn sensitive, Lissy." His eyes flicked down to where Jasper was cowering by Cali's leg, tail puffed up threateningly, ears flat to his head. "Take your mangy rat with you. I don't want to see it's ugly mug in my house again."

Cali wanted to tell him that it was their house, that she'd paid more money than he had. But fear stayed her tongue. She didn't think she could endure another bout of his rage. Not when she didn't know why he was so angry with her in the first place.

She crouched down and scooped Jasper into her arms, then turned on her heel and hobbled out the front door.

All in all, she wasn't hurt too bad. There would be many, many bruises, but Michael hadn't broken any bones. Her wrist was the only major injury, and even then it was barely sprained. Everything was superficial, surface level and nothing more. It could be worse. It could always be worse.

She didn't call for a driver. She just kept her arm pressed tight against her stomach and braved the walk to the Queen mansion. Each step was shakier than the last, but whenever she felt it was too much, Cali would simply bury her face in Jasper's fur and keep going. Jasper, her rock, her baby. The one nice thing Michael had ever done for her.

Jasper, who was filling the whole that should have belonged to Gabriel. Jasper, who kept himself calm in her arms as she sniffled and heaved her breaths and finally walked away from the man she never should have stayed with.

Tommy would have a field day with this.

Cali didn't want to hear the 'I-told-you-so.' She just wanted... She wanted her brother to hold her. She wanted Oliver back. She wanted her mom.

She wanted to not be in pain anymore.

Jasper nosed gently at her neck, his whiskers twitching along her overly heated skin. She ran a gentle hand down his back, scratching between his ears. Gradually, her breathing eased. God, this never should have happened. If she'd been able to have Gabriel, like she and Michael had wanted, none of this would be happening. She'd be nursing her baby, not nursing an injured wrist.

She walked just slightly faster. She knew it wasn't that Michael didn't love her - he did, she was sure of it - it's just that he got so angry sometimes. And he couldn't be blamed for losing himself in his grief for the baby they never had. The baby Cali lost. The baby she killed.

So maybe she deserved what he'd given her. Really, he should have hit her harder. She'd murdered his child. Unintentionally, of course, but it was her body that failed. It was her that caused Gabriel's life to end before it even began. And that made her a monster, not a mother.

Jasper made a small chuffing sound. Cali let it mask her croaky sob.

Dusk was staining the sky a gentle pink by the time Cali made it to the Queen mansion, Jasper a furry ice cube in her arms. Guilt joined the steady thumping pain in her side. She hadn't meant to drag him through such bad conditions. But she couldn't have left him with Michael, not when he'd been in such a terrible mood.

The door cracked open before she even raised a hand to knock, Raisa's wide, shocked eyes taking her in for the barest moment. "In," the maid directed when she'd looked her fill, gently reaching for Cali and herding her inside. Jasper let out the smallest meow Cali had ever heard. Raisa frowned at him. "Poor thing," she clucked. "I'm sure we have food for him, if you'd like."

Cali said nothing, but her hold on her cat didn't ease.

Raisa nodded to herself and didn't force the issue, instead shuffling Cali upstairs to the spare room. Too-heavy footsteps told Cali that Thea was already there and following them, but the Queen girl didn't dare speak. Not yet. Not after seeing the blood that had dried on the collar of Cali's shirt.

Raisa didn't try and touch Cali again as she motioned for her to sit on the bed. Nor did she offer to take Jasper, or to bring her fresh clothes. Cali loved her more in that moment than she'd ever loved her own mother.

And God, didn't that make her feel worse.

"I'll bring something for you and the kitten," Raisa said gently. "You're both cold and hungry. I'll be back. Thea, grab a blanket?"

Thea, again without saying a word, fetched the blanket from the closet and carefully draped it over Cali's shoulders. Immediately, Jasper wriggled in her grip and crawled further up until he could bury his face in the blanket, snuggling up by her shoulder. Cali let him adjust himself and then went straight back to holding him.

Raisa bustled away, leaving Thea and Cali is a silent standoff. The battle lasted barely a second; Thea caved first. "Cute cat," she said. "If I had to flee an abusive house, I'd take my pet too."

Cali didn't have the will to fight her. "His name is Jasper," she whispered hoarsely. Her split lip cracked open again, the tiniest dribble of blood escaping down her chin. Cali winced as Thea's eyes tracked the droplet. "Sorry."

Thea scoffed. "You're literally a battered housewife and you're saying sorry to me? Cali, honey, have you seen yourself yet?"

Cali's scalp still ached. She pressed her cheek into Jasper's soft fur. "I lost the baby."

Immediately, Thea's hard edges softened. Her hands fluttered by her side, as though she wanted to reach out but couldn't quite bring herself to bridge that final gap. Maybe it was trepidation - Cali was known to react to people reaching for her with something akin to desperate violence.

Cali didn't know how to tell her that she'd had enough violence for today. She just wanted someone to make her safe. Someone who wouldn't force her to get rid of her cat, who wouldn't blame her for losing the baby she'd fought so desperately to keep alive.

"Yeah," Thea breathed, settling for giving Jasper a gentle pet instead. "I know. I'm sorry, Cali."

Cali blinked rapidly down at her legs. "Yeah," she echoed and closed her eyes tight enough that stars burst across the back of her eyelids. "Yeah."

.                         .                          .

Janet opened the door after the second knock, which signalled to Cali that the waitress had already been informed and was simply waiting for Cali to finally show up on her doorstep for some kind of comfort.

"Hey," Janet said quietly, opening her arms just enough for Cali to topple forward into them.

Getting hugged by Janet was like snuggling up under the bed covers in winter - it was deliciously warm and tight but not stifling. It was the intense feeling of safety and love and satisfaction. Which was the weirdest mix of soothing and irritating as Cali's heart seized with all the complex emotions she'd been trying not to feel on the way over.

Complex emotions that had caused her to lash out unfairly at Parker, who'd already been waiting for her at King's Street, apparently at Malcolm's request. It seemed her father had anticipated her reaction and decided to plan for it. Which pissed her off even more, in a way that she couldn't actually explain.

(Maybe it wasn't that she was angry, maybe it's that she was afraid. The fucking file said they had a connection and that meant that he knew her in ways that even Tommy didn't. And that terrified her.)

"I can't keep doing this," Cali confessed into Janet's nicely defined collarbone. Janet's arms shifted slightly at the muffled words, but didn't pull away completely. Cali let the touch ground her as she squeezed her eyes closed. "I don't know how to not go back to him."

She wanted to blame it on the serum, on those recorded effects and that damn connection thing, but really, she couldn't. She didn't know where she ended and the serum began. If she'd had that serum in her for most of her life, how could she tell if it was a genuine want to reconcile with her father or just another side effect?

She'd threatened to kill him if he tried to come near her. That wasn't the serum. That was her.

So she just had to cling to her anger, to her disdain. She had to wrap it around herself so tightly that she breathed the aggression, that she lived her anger with every inhale and every exhale and every damn heartbeat, if only to stave off the need to go crawling back to the man who stole her one free will away from her.

Malcolm claimed he was doing it for her.

Cali called bullshit.

"Do you think this is how Oliver feels?" Cali wondered out loud, gripping desperately at Janet's hips as the waitress's arms tighten around her. "So...so angry and misplaced? Like he can only be angry because there's nothing else to be? Like he's angry because that's the last emotion that he has left that's actually his?"

Janet's voice was suspiciously thick and horrendously sad when she said, "I don't know, CC, but I know that you're going to be okay."

Cali laughed bitterly. "My father is a psychopath who literally changed my body's chemicals to make sure I could never escape him."

"Tommy says he was doing it to keep you alive."

Cali pulled out of the hug slowly, almost disbelievingly. Janet's hand lingered on her shoulders, almost as though she was reluctant to let go, as though she were afraid that Cali was going to go somewhere nobody else could follow if Janet's hands weren't tying her to this one place.

It wasn't entirely untrue, if Cali was completely honest. "You're defending him?" She asked slowly, thickly, the words clinging to her tongue, too afraid to leap into the air and be accusing.

Janet shook her head, even as her lips twisted into a small frown. "It's not that I'm defending him-"

"You are," Cali cut her off, eyes blowing wide with shock. "You're actually defending the man. So what, he was trying to save my life? If it was my time to die, then it was my time to die! Why should I be so special compared to everyone else?"

Some sort of strangled wheeze escaped from Janet's throat. "What's that supposed to mean? You want to die?"

"I want a life that's my own."

"This doesn't stop you from being your own person, CC."

Cali's laugh was more like a jackal cry - short and wild and ugly. Janet winced back. Right, she hadn't seen this side to Cali yet. Tommy had. Oliver had. Thea had. Fuck, everybody in her life had, so why not Janet too? Knowing Cali's shitty luck, it would be just the thing to chase the girl away.

Janet's fingertips smoothed over Cali's cheek, touching her so gingerly that Cli's horrible laugh cut off with a soft breath. "Stop," Janet said. "Just... stop."

Cali didn't dare breathe too deeply for fear of displacing those gentle fingers. "You have no idea," she said in a whisper, "how scared I am."

"I do," Janet whispered back, those fingers still ghosting over Cali's skin. "Oh honey, believe me. I do."

And-

Okay, see-

Cali knew she wasn't really worth much anymore. Maybe once, she'd been something special. Back when she was someone's daughter. But then Starling City had robbed her off that title, and the ocean had robbed her of Oliver, and Michael had robbed her of her own damn soul. So she wasn't much more than a dumpster fire given form.

But when Janet looked at her like that - with all the love and adoration in the world - and her touch was so heartbreakingly gentle, like Cali was something precious, she felt what it would be to be valuable to someone.

Not that Tommy hadn't ever done that for her, but he was her brother. That bond was literally bred into them. But Janet...Janet loved Cali, and that was her own choice. There was no expectation, no prior history. Janet was there for Cali because she wanted to be, because she could be. And Cali loved her fiercely for that.

So Cali crowded forward and crushed her mouth to Janet's with a bruising, desperate force.

Janet kissed back instantly, matching Cali's intensity easily and grabbing at her hips to keep them together. Cali pressed her own hands against Janet's stomach, brushing her thumbs along Janet's ribs. The kiss never faltered once.

"I love you," she puffed when both of them paused for air.

Janet beamed at her, and pressed her response to Cali's open mouth.

Cali walked Janet backwards until they were both inside and then kicked the door shut behind them.

.                          .                         .

Cali's phone buzzed insistently on the bedside table and she groaned in annoyance. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to sleep until she died. She's already been awake once this morning, when Janet had made her breakfast before dashing off to work, but then Cali had promptly slipped back into the depths of unconsciousness.

She was tired.

She grabbed her phone, answered the call without looking at who it was calling her, and snarled, "What do you want, you fucking ingrate?"

"Good morning to you too," Oliver said pleasantly, apparently unbothered by her grouchiness. "Or really, it's just hit noon, so it's not even morning anymore."

Cali scrubbed at her face before trying desperately to smother herself with one of Janet's pillows. "Is there a purpose to this call, Ollie, or did you just wake me up to be a dick?"

Silence crackled over the line for a moment, and Cali took the chance to sit up, trying desperately to get the larger chunks of sleep out of her eye as if it would remove the temptation to simply go back to sleep. "Can I not just call my best girl?" Oliver asked finally.

"Not when your best girl was asleep."

"It's literally the afternoon, Cali, why are you sleeping so late?"

Cali scowled at the bedsheets. "Who gave you the right to be so fucking judgy?"

Oliver hummed, amused. "No need to get so defensive, guppy, I'm just teasing. Given that you stayed the night with that waitress of yours, I think I have a pretty solid idea why you're so tired."

Cali's face heated. "Oliver!" She clutched the sheets to her chest, feeling suddenly exposed despite wearing one of Janet's old t-shirts. Oliver's gentle laugh was barely more than an exhale, and it softened Cali's embarrassment into something more fond. "You didn't need to do that to me," she scolded half-heartedly.

Rustling on Oliver's end of the call suggested movement, and Cali used the brief pause to force away the redness to her cheeks. "What else am I supposed to tease you about?" Oliver said lightly. "I don't know enough about your waitress-"

"She's not just 'my waitress', Ollie, you know her name. Use it."

"Okay, so I know her name is Janet," Oliver agreed, "but that's all you've told me! I'm waiting for all the gossip and gushing, and you're depriving me."

Cali's lips twitched. "Is this your way of asking me to gush about my girlfriend?"

"Cali, I thought we were at the stage where I didn't have to ask."

And it was true. Before the 'Gambit' had gone down, Oliver had been her go-to guy for everything. He'd been the one she'd tell about her partners, her crushes, her dreams and desires and pet peeves like Tommy constantly moving her hair brushes around.

In return, Oliver had always engaged in her sleepover-gossip rituals. He'd sneak bowls of ice cream up to the bedroom for her while she prepared a pillow fort, and he'd let her braid his long hair while he whispered about whatever girl he was taking out the next day.

It might've been cute to continue the tradition if they hadn't grown up, because now Oliver whispered about being the vigilante instead of girls, and Cali told him about abuse instead of Tommy's annoying habits.

She cleared her throat, which suddenly and inexplicably felt tight, and tried to keep the cheer in her voice when she said, "Yeah, alright. I think I can spare a few minutes to talk about my personal lord and saviour, Janet Parker. Before I start my spiel, is there anything you really want to know? Specifically?"

"Yeah, actually." Oliver's voice had thinned, lost it's steadiness. "I just want to know one thing - does she make you happy?"

And oh, that wasn't something Cali had anticipated.

"Yeah," she answered quietly. "Yeah, she does."

"Okay then." Oliver inhaled deeply, and Cali matched him, trying desperately to hold back the sudden swell of grief that was threatening to swamp her. This is what she should've had - this is what the 'Gambit' stole from her. This is the role that Tommy tried his damndest to fill, that he couldn't quite manage because that role was Oliver-shaped and thus could only be filled by Oliver. "Tell me about Miss Janet Parker."

Where did she even begin? "The most important thing about Miss Janet Parker," Cali started, voice just a touch too wobbly to be considered casual, "is that she can make the best milkshakes in Starling City."

.                         .                            .

When they were younger - he, Oliver and Cali - Tommy hadn't been invited to the sleepover gossip sessions. It wasn't out of maliciousness, or because his sister and his best friend hated him, but it was dine. And Tommy had hated it, had grown bitter whenever Oliver crept upstairs with two bowls of ice cream.

Because of this, he'd started to blow off Oliver's attempts to spend time with him. Because despite what young Tommy thought, Oliver wasn't choosing Cali over him Oliver was just choosing Cali, like he'd chosen Tommy. Despite what young Tommy believed, there was room in Oliver's heart for both of them.

The last thing Oliver had ever said to him was, "Please wait for me before you leave. I want to talk to you."

Tommy, bitter and young and stupid, had left without waiting. Because in his head, Cali was Oliver's chosen one. And it didn't matter that Tommy and Oliver had been through everything else together, it didn't matter that the two of them were closer than brothers, that Oliver had been the one who'd crawled into the shrivelled remains of TOmmy's heart after his Mom had died and then made a home.

Tommy walked away first.

And then the fucking yacht had gone down and Tommy lost his platonic soulmate.

And he'd never known what Oliver had wanted to talk about.

For years, years, that had weighed on his conscience. Regret plagued his dreams, and then when Oliver had come back, Tommy's throat had constricted every time he'd though to ask his friend what it was he'd wanted to talk about all those years ago.

So he'd sworn never to let his own jealousy prevent him from having that bond. He'd been given a second chance, and he intended to use it well. Because he deserved Oliver's friendship, and Oliver deserved his trust and support in return.

He paused in front of the open door that led to Oliver's bedroom and bit his bottom lip, frowning in concentration as he focused on the conversation Oliver was currently engaged in. The lack of response told Tommy that his friend was on the phone.

Which made sense of course, because Moira had told Tommy that Oliver was up here. Alone.

"I'm glad you're definitely coming tonight," Oliver was saying. He sounded lighter than usual. Happier. "I thought that maybe after the meeting with your father you might've wanted to just stay in with Janet."

So he was talking to Cali. Tommy forcibly swallowed down that ugly feeling.

Cali must have said something because Oliver laughed - an actual, genuine laugh that Tommy hadn't heard the likes of since his friend had gotten back. It was a bittersweet thing to hear - sweet, because hearing Oliver actually laugh after whatever hell he'd been through was a blessing. Bitter, because Oliver wouldn't laugh like that for anybody else.

"Yeah well," Oliver said into the phone, sobering slightly. "Can't let my best girl hide herself away from the rest of the world. Gotta keep you where I can see you. You know too much about me."

And didn't it say something about how well Tommy was handling this whole situation that he took something that was obviously meant to be teasing so seriously. Because it was virtually impossible to know too much about Oliver Queen. It was hard enough knowing the basics. Even Tommy didn't know everything about his best friend, and he'd grown up with him.

So to think that Cali knew more than him-

Actually.

It probably wasn't that unlikely. Lord knew that Cali seemed to be the balm to Oliver's many hurts. So it would make sense that he'd let his guard slip around her, that she'd find out things Oliver would prefer to hide from the rest of them.

Somehow, the thought didn't make Tommy feel any better. It just made his skin tighten over his bones.

"I know you don't like keeping secrets." Oliver was talking quietly now, voice dropping to a murmur. Tommy strained to hear it, curious and angry. Here he was, on the outside once again. "If it's any consolation, I didn't want you to find out like you did. I didn't want you to know at all. It's just going to put you at risk."

Secrets.

Tommy was so fucking sick of secrets.

Malcolm kept secrets, Oliver kept secrets, and now he found out that his own damn sister was lying to him. Keeping things from him. The last time Cali had kept secrets like that, it was Michael. Tommy couldn't survive something like that again. It hadn't been his trauma to suffer through, but he was still getting nightmares about it.

To think that Cali was putting him through the exact same thing without any sort of regret or care burned something in his chest. If this is what heartbreak felt liek, true proper heartbreak that could only be felt when even family abandoned you, then Tommy didn't want it.

Oliver kept talking, voice raising again. "You, me and Diggle need to have a proper talk. We haven't really had a chance for that yet."

Reeling away from the open door, Tommy tried to move his feet in some semblance of order as he all but fled the scene. He didn't need to know. He didn't want to know.

He all but fell down the stairs, desperation slamming through him in a violent tsunami. His heartbeat pounded in his ears as he forced his body to coordinate with itself. He had to get away. Get away from this suffocating life where everybody kept lying. Everyone kept choosing everyone else, and Tommy was left to pick up the pieces. Because that's what he was good for - being the second choice, being reliable.

Never mind that Tommy had been the one to nurse Cali back to health, nevermind that he'd been the one to stop Thea from spinning too far out of control. Nevermind that Tommy was struggling too, that he'd mourned Oliver just as strongly as the rest of them.

Moira met him at the bottom of the stairs, her lips pursed and face pained. Clearly, his disorganised banging and clattering had drawn her out of whatever hole she'd been hiding in. "Tommy," she tried, reaching out to him.

Tommy shied away from the touch, feeling sick to his stomach. His skin felt too hot, too tight. He didn't bother trying to smile. "Sorry to leave so abruptly," he said politely, because even when emotionally compromised, he knew how not to be a dick. "I'm afraid there are a few matters I have to attend to before tonight's party."

"Tommy," Moira said again, gentler this time. "Whatever you heard, whatever he said, it wasn't meant like that. Oliver is... he's troubled. He doesn't mean to push us away."

Tommy didn't care, he didn't. He just wanted to leave before the walls got too close and crushed him. "Maybe," he answered bitterly. "Doesn't mean I have to stick around and watch him screw up our lives yet again."

Fuck being polite.

Tommy was done.

To her credit, Moira didn't try to stop him again as he spun on his heel and left with as much dignity as he could muster - which was, to say, not very much at all. Just another thing this life had stolen from him.

He got all the way to the front door before a hand brushed against his arm, an action that brought him to a complete standstill as he waited for whatever feeble attempt would be made to get him to stay.

Thea's voice was so painfully gentle when she said, "Call Laurel," and pushed a phone into his hands. It was his. Tommy hadn't even realised he'd left it on the couch.

He looked down at the device and slipped in between his palms a few times. He didn't know how to tell Thea, sweet but hurting little Thea, that she was the wrong Queen sibling, that her voice was the wrong voice, that her words were the wrong words. He didn't know how to tell her that, because nobody had ever figured out how to say it to him.

Instead, he said nothing, pulled away from her touch, and left her standing by herself on the threshold of her own house as he opened the front door and walked away as fast as he could.

.                          .                           .

See, it all ended like this:

Michael came to find her at the Queen mansion. Cali didn't know why - Michael hadn't taken the liberty to tell her when he'd politely knocked on Thea's door, let himself into the room, shut the door behind him and locked it, and then pushed Thea against said door.

"What did she tell you?" He demanded lowly, maintaining his too-tight hold on the young girl's shoulders. "What lies did that fucking whore whisper in your ear?"

Thea, unafraid and brave, held eye contact. "She didn't have to tell me anything," she spat back venomously. "I know abuse when I see it, Michael Martin, and I know you're a fucking monster without anyone telling me."

Cali couldn't react fast enough, couldn't reach them in time to prevent Michael from striking Thea across the face. "Stop!" She cried, tugging uselessly at Michael's shoulders while Thea gasped. Jasper yowled from the bed. "Michael, no! You can hit me, but not Thea. Not Thea."

"Why?" Michael dropped his grip on Thea, which was what Cali had been going for, but advanced on the Merlyn girl instead, backing her up against the bed. "Why should I spare your little side piece? You think I don't know about you two, hm? Think I don't know that you keep leaving me for everyone else? What is it, huh? I can't satisfy you?"

"You killed my baby." Cali said, chin wobbling, even as she watched Thea unlock the door and slip away. Hopefully to get help. "It was your fault my body couldn't handle the pregnancy. It was your fault that birth went wrong, that I went into labour too early."

"Don't blame me for your mistakes."

And it was like-

Okay, Cali had heard her partner sound angry. She's heard Michael sound sad, and cold, and happy. But she'd never heard him sound like this. She couldn't describe it, not even to save a life, but it sent chills up her spine and triggered her instinctual need to get away. So she grabbed Jasper in a tight hold, slipped under Michael's outstretched arm, and ran.

She got all the way out the door and halfway to the stairs before Michael caught up with her, slinging an arm around her waist and hauled her backwards. Her shrill shriek was muffled by the hand that covered her mouth. "None of that now," Michael crooned, and Cali was beginning to think that he was clinically insane. "Now, you're going to come home with me, quietly, and we're going to put this behind us."

Cali started crying.

Jasper, crushed in her arms, let out a strangled whine, pained enough that Cali loosened her grip enough for him to fall to the floor. Michael didn't chase him. Jasper didn't stick around.

"Michael Martin, you will release Callissa and leave my house immediately." Moira's voice rang out from the stairs, firm and furious and terrified. Cali, still trapped in Michael's hold, could see just enough of Moira's face to know that her control over the situation was finite and fragile. "The police are on their way."

Michael's arm around Cali's waist tightened, and she coughed slightly. Thea took a step closer. "Let her go," the young girl snarled angrily.

"Thea," Cali breathed. "No."

And see, later, when Detective Quinten Lance sat by her bedside in the hospital, she couldn't answer his question about how Michael moved so quickly. To her, it only took a mere second for Michael to drop his hold on her and throw himself forward, wrap a hand around Thea's throat, and then push.

And it took less than a second for Thea to go flying back down the stairs.

Later, when Quinten sat beside her hospital bed and told her about the police getting there right alongside the ambulance and how they got inside just as Michael tried to run for it, Cali would tell him that she didn't remember anything after seeing Thea at the bottom of the stairs, blood seeping from her head, eyes closed and motionless.

.                          .                           .

See, it ended like this:

Thea Queen was released from hospital after being treated for severe concussion and cranial bruising. Her mother cried when they drove home.

Calissa Merlyn was released weeks later, allowing her brother to take her home to his apartment only to disappear that night, letting the city swallow her whole until the only thing left was a hastily scrawled note pleading everyone to just let her go.

It took Tommy over six months to find her and bring her home again.