A Shot in the Dark 🏹 Oliver Queen

FIVE.

Zoey stormed away from the door. She heard it open and close behind her, followed by Tommy's voice.

"Zoey! Where are you going? We just got here!"

"I can't do this. It's too weird." Zoey grabbed her suitcase out of the back of Tommy's car and began dialing a cab company on her phone. She would look for flights on the drive to the airport then call Michelle and ask if she could pick her up once she landed.

"Wait! Zo, you can't go. I thought you made a deal with Moira?"

"I did, but I thought it'd be at least a couple days before I would have to see him. I didn't think I'd run into him within the first ten minutes I was back in Starling City! Besides, Thea hates me now and probably goes to bed praying for my downfall, and Moira is... She's Moira! She still looks at me like I'm the help, and I still feel weird about how she suddenly went from shunning Liam and I to suddenly wanting us to skip on over to Queen Mansion singing 'over the meadow and through the woods, to grandmother's house we go'" the words spilled out of her mouth at warp speed and she flailed her hands frantically.

Tommy rubbed her shoulders gently and looked her in the eye, which required leaning down since she was a whole head shorter than him. "Okay, first of all, you're talking in a frequency only dogs can hear. Take a breath."

Zoey followed his instructions and breathed deeply through her nose, letting the air out slowly through her mouth.

"I didn't realize how hard it would be to see them again. All of them. Moira, Thea... Oliver. I've been going about my life the last five years thinking I would never see any of them again. I planned on it. And it took two days for all of that to be turned upside down and now I don't know what to do about it."

"You've never done well with change. Not unless you could sit down and sketch out an entire pros and cons list and then formulate a ten-step plan. Or twenty step, or fifty, or... just a lot of steps in advanced. You like having a plan. That's what I was getting at."

"I like to know how to avoid disaster. With the Queen family, sometimes I think there is no avoiding disaster."

"Well what if you just assume everything will be a disaster? That way, you're either prepared or you're pleasantly surprised!" Tommy flashed his signature, white toothed grin and Zoey couldn't help but giggle.

"What a way to live." She said sarcastically. She thought about how her father used to talk about doomsday preppers, the people that hoarded supplies and built shelters in preparation for an apocalypse that they might never see in their lifetime. His viewpoint wasn't much different than the logic Tommy had offered.

Tommy was glad he'd finagled a smile out of her, but he knew he hadn't been much help past slowing her down long enough to take a couple breaths. He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"Stick it out. At least a little bit longer. It will get easier. Who knows? Maybe you'll even find a reason you never want to leave again."

///

The guest room Moira had prepared for Zoey was down the hall from Thea. The room alone was roughly the same square footage of her home back in Minnesota, and much more lavishly furnished. There was a sitting area with an ivory colored velvet settee and two upholstered arm chairs around a glass coffee table and a large television. An oversized, four poster bed against the far wall was drowned under a floral duvet and a dozen throw pillows. Paintings in expensive frames decorated the walls and heavy beige curtains hung around the windows.

Zoey took off her jacket and tossed it onto one of the armchairs. As promised, Zoey's suitcase had been brought up and placed near the foot of the bed. She unzipped it and dug out an outfit to replace her leggings and t-shirt. She changed into a rust colored dress with long sleeves, contorting one arm behind her back and one over her shoulder to zip the dress.