❛Helps me forget it ❜

Anna had been longing to go back to the warehouse ever since she got back that evening. It was not that she wished to be back in a place that interrupted her positive thoughts and made her rethink all her life choices and abilities, but she was intrigued. Being back in the warehouse invoked a feeling in her that she had never felt before, not even on the island or the ferry. Just setting foot in the moldy building with cracks covering the foundation made her feel inferior. She questioned her ability to fight again, or even just be on an equal playing field with her opponent. But when the Count gave her a drug that wasn't an overdose of Vertigo, she felt better. Her pain washed away and she felt like she was on cloud nine.

Being in the warehouse made her feel real. She needed to experience everything. She needed to face her fears in order to convince herself she was real. If she continued to go back to the warehouse than she could try to get her confidence back and be herself. Because at this moment, Annabelle Carter had no idea who she was. Was she a fighter who could battle any opponent in her way? Or was she a coward who constantly made herself appear stronger than she was in order to make herself seem okay to the people around her? Until Anna figured out who she truly was, she would never be truly okay.

Anna sat currently at the dinner table with Tommy across from her and all other seats completely vacant. Tommy had a glass of wine in his hand and he was sipping it mindfully while Anna also had her own wine, something very strange since she was certainly not one to drink. But after her ordeal in the warehouse where she was on drugs each and every day, Anna had resorted to other measures to keep herself happy. And at the moment, no one noticed the change with her drinking preferences, even if she had drunk herself to sleep more than once.

"How's Laurel, Thomas?" the girl wondered while taking a large sip of her red wine. He smiled and scooped a forkful of carrot cake into his mouth. "She's great," he responded with a wide grin. "I really love her."

Anna smiled, "That's great, Tommy. I'm really happy for you," she honestly told him while downing the rest of her wine. "You deserve to be happy."

Tommy laughed and leaned over to pour the girl more wine, and then refilling his glass as well. "You do, too, Bella. More than anyone else I know."

Anna shrugged, "You don't have to say that," she said while brushing him off. "It's true," he grinned, then looking up as Oliver wandered into the room while tugging on his long sleeve shirt. "Hey! Big Man is here!" Tommy cheered while standing up and clapping Oliver on the back. Oliver smiled and then approached Anna to kiss her on the head. He glanced at the glass of wine sitting in front of her and squeezed her shoulder before taking his place at the head of the table. "What have I missed?"

"We were just talking about me, of course," Tommy answered with a smug smirk. Oliver chuckled and held out his glass for Tommy to fill, which he did right away. "And how great it is to have Annabelle back," he added in. "Gone for five years, back for a couple months, and then gone again? If I knew any better, Anna, I'd think you were an international criminal or something," he joked. Anna lightly chuckled, her laugh being nothing genuine. "If only I'd have asked to be gone. It's as if no one has regard for a businesswoman trying to live her life," she smiled.

Oliver took a sip of his wine and eyed Anna as she took another large sip of her wine. She felt better with every sip she took and she felt all her problems fading away. The only way to suppress her nightmares were to drink herself to sleep so she would wake up in the morning without having lost her breath in her sleep. "It's pretty impressive you've gone through all this without being a new person. Come on, we didn't know you were going to make it and now we've got our girl back."

Anna smiled, this time it was becoming genuine as she began to lose control of some of her senses. "I'm still the girl you knew five years ago," she responded, hoping that if she repeated it so many times than she would start to believe it. Oliver stared at her, trying to watch her eyes to see if he could see through the lie. He only had to watch her for a second to see it clearly, and he grew more concerned as he realized she might be starting to convince herself of the lie. Tommy smiled and they clinged their glasses together, then waiting for Oliver to do the same. He lifted his, clicked his glass against Tommy's who took a sip, and then looked at the glass extended in Anna's hand. Her smile turned to a frown when she saw his look of disapproval but he clinged his glass against hers anyways and drank his wine, then directing his attention to the girl who just finished her glass. "Cheers," she said with no emotions as she placed her glass down.

"Cheers," she then whispered to herself under her breath with a lost look in her eyes.

•••

"What was that?" Oliver demanded as the door closed behind him and Anna had peeled off her shirt and grabbed her pajama shirt from the top drawer of Oliver's dresser. She pulled it over her head and buttoned all but the last two buttons at the top and grabbed her pajama pants. "What are you talking about?" she wondered. She unbuttoned her pants and pulled down the zipper before leaning too much to the right and almost toppling over. Oliver raced over to grab her before she hit the ground and pulled her up. She laughed at her own mistake and patted Oliver twice on the chest before plopping down on his bed. She rolled her head to the side and stared at Oliver's eyes. "I'm talking about this! This isn't you! Drinking? Lying to your best friend? What is going on? You can't keep stressing your ulcer like this!"

"Stop," the girl mumbled under her breath, feeling the anger bubble in her gut. She pressed her hands against the bed and curled her fingers around the sheet to try and alleviate her stress. Oliver dryly laughed and shook his head, lifting his arms over his head and placing them on his forehead to try and deal with this situation. "I don't even know how to talk to you! The drinking! The lying! The - "

"I said stop!" the girl shouted. Oliver looked over at her and saw her looking ashamed as she briefly closed her eyes to try and calm herself. "Please," she whispered. "Just stop."

Oliver sighed, "I don't get it, Anna."

"It's hard to explain," she admitted to him.

There was a long silence between the two of them and the only sound was the clock on the wall ticking on. Anna glanced at Oliver after a long moment of silence and pursed her lips, "We can talk about this in the morning."

Oliver took a deep breath and shut off the lights, watching as the girl he loved laid down and threw a blanket over herself. He quickly changed his shirt and then crawled in next to her, but facing the opposite direction.

He knew he couldn't get Anna to talk when she didn't want to. She won this one, she got to stop talking when it became too much for her. He couldn't push her to answer questions that she wasn't ready to answer. She shut down, and she had a right.

He just had to wait until morning to get the answers he wanted.

Oliver had not slept great that night. He faced the opposite direction from Anna because both were stubborn and neither one wanted to admit defeat. And turning around would do just that. When he woke up, Anna was no longer beside him. He was startled, usually, Anna was up after him and he would be sitting downstairs when she exited the bedroom. However, it was Oliver who woke up alone.

After he threw a sweater on, he walked downstairs expecting to see Anna curled on the couch with Thea by her side. But it was only Thea and she was sliding into her blazer and fixing her collar. "You're up late," Thea said as she saw him walking into the living room. He scrunched his eyebrows. "Only about five minutes. Where is everyone?"

Thea shrugged, "Mom's at the office and I think Raisa is in the kitchen. Diggle will probably be here soon," she explained before grabbing her bookbag off the couch and hiking it over her shoulder. "Need a ride to school?" Oliver wondered while his sister approached the front door. "I was going to ask Anna," she replied back. Oliver shook his head, "She isn't ready to be driving around, Speedy. Her hand still isn't strong enough and I need to keep a closer eye on her. Maybe Raisa could drive you, or Dig when he gets here."

Thea tilted her head to the side, "She's better than you think, Ollie. Just remember that," she told her brother while patting him on the shoulder twice and nearing the kitchen. "Thea," Oliver called out, stopping the girl. "Where is she?" 

Thea smiled, "In the garden, obviously."

She ran away after answering, hopping to the kitchen to try and see if Raisa could drive her. Oliver pursed his lips and opened the front door. He walked down the steps and to the right where the mulch path lay so nicely. He wandered down that path and stretched out his arm to feel the wind fly through his fingertips. There was a bird chirping from the tree in front of him but when Oliver walked into the clearing, he saw Annabelle laying on her back on a blue blanket. She was mindlessly staring at the clouds with her hands clasped on her stomach. She was laying in front of both headstones. Oliver sighed, not surprised by finding her there as whenever she is troubled she goes to have a conversation with her old headstone.

Silently, Oliver walked over to the girl and quickly hopped onto her blanket in a forward roll hoping to spook her a bit. Anna smiled and a laugh left her mouth and Oliver grinned and rolled over on top of her. She playfully pushed him off and he laughed, rolling onto his back next to her and looking up at the clouds. The laugh from Anna made her think that she was okay for maybe just one moment, but when it only took a second for her smile to disappear again and she was staring at the clouds again, he reminded himself that she wasn't okay. "You didn't scare me, you know," the girl said softly as she examined a fluffy cloud. Oliver smirked, "I know. It takes a lot to scare you."

She glanced over at the man beside her and shook her head, "Apparently not," she muttered.

Oliver looked at her and leaned over onto his side, "Why are you hiding everything, Anna? C-can you just tell me that?"

Anna took a deep breath and stared at a cloud shaped like a bunny. That cloud morphed slowly into a mimic of The Count and Anna gasped lightly. Oliver looked up at where she was and didn't see anything strange so he grabbed Anna's hand tightly and ran his fingers over her knuckles. "What is it, Anna?" he whispered, moving closer to her to let her know he was there for her.

"I see him, Ollie," she whispered fearfully. "Who, Anna?" Oliver sternly asked. She turned his head and stared at him and he saw the fear in her eyes, "The Count," she weakly responded. "I see him whenever I close my eyes, and in the clouds, on the street. It's worse than the island. Why is this worse than the island?" she whimpered. Oliver lifted a hand and ran his thumb over her cheekbone. "Because it happened here," he responded to her in a caring and soft voice. Anna shook her head and looked back at the cloud. She saw a bunny again. 

"Anna, you are the strongest person I know. I've never doubted that. I know you have nightmares of the island, and now you have nightmares about the Count. We have lives that put us in the positions and you need to tell me when these things are happening. I can get you help - "

"The drinking helps me forget it," she interrupted. "When I drink, I forget the pain and I just pass out, and then I don't have nightmares."

"Like the Count did to you," Oliver realized. She slowly nodded and closed her eyes, seeing flashes dance across her eyelids. They were flashes of her time on the ferry. Sara. Ivo. Antony. Oliver... the Count. She snapped her eyes open again. "The drugs helped me suppress everything. And after being addicted for a month, it's hard to leave it all behind," she admitted to him. She knew she was addicted to anything to help her relieve her stress, but she didn't know what to do about it. She needed help.

"I love you, Anna. I'm here to help you."

Anna looked back over at Oliver, "I'm scared, Oliver. What we do, the enemies we make, the things that we see... I'm scared. But I'm more scared that I won't be able to do it anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"I told Sara one day on the freighter that we needed to do whatever Ivo wanted, we needed to become who we wanted, to survive. And she said something to me that day... I-I think she asked me that what if that was who we truly were. And I told her, Oliver... I told her that it wasn't. That is was only temporary. And here I am, begging to be okay so that I can fight again and do what I have to do. Because being this person is who I am. I don't know who I am if I... what if I can never be that person again? I have an ulcer, Ollie. I'm permanently damaged. And my hand! I can't - "

Oliver held Anna's face in his hands and turned her to face him. There were tears welling in her eyes and he wiped one stray away. "I let my guard down and I lost. The Count got the better of me," she said so quietly it was barely audible. "I'm scared, too, Annabelle," he admitted to her. "I'm scared for you and for me. We're fighters, that's who we are. We are new people changed by the island and we have to accept that."

Anna shook her head, "I promised Sara that we would stay true to who we are. In that warehouse, I realized that I lost to Ivo, too. I became exactly who we wanted me to be. I broke my promise to Sara. I changed."

Oliver placed a kiss on her forehead and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. "You got beat, Anna. You lost. But that shouldn't matter because you can get back up. I know you can."

"I made an amateur mistake," she argued. She kept repeating that to herself in her head. Iver and over. Over and over. Over and over. If she had just turned around when putting Thea's clothes in the car then she would never have been captured. Or maybe he would have gotten her somewhere else. All the constant thinking and worrying and drinking and not sleeping made her head hurt. She was so tired. 

"There was nothing you could have done, Annabelle." 

She briefly closed her eyes. She yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. Oliver knew she was exhausted. He knew she wasn't sleeping. He knew she got up late in the night sometimes to go to the bathroom and just sat on the floor to wait for the pain to pass. He knew her.

"Go to sleep, Bella," he whispered, bringing his arm around her shoulder and pulling her into him. She snuggled into his side and gripped his shirt as if her life depended on it. "I love you, Oliver," she said quietly as she closed her eyes and saw a bunny. She saw a bunny on a field, hopping around other bunnies. She saw a cloud. She saw everything but a nightmare. 

"I love you more."