Thriving

Family Affairs

For the last six weeks, the Queen Mansion had been shrouded in a tense, gloomy fog. Just hours after the family visited Oliver in the hospital, Walter went missing. Everyone worried about him and dealt with it in their own way. For Amber, that meant putting the research skills her mother taught her to use.

Although, after some light hacking into SCPD and relentless tracking of digital leads, Amber was starting to get burnt out. So when Oliver suggested a movie night to her and Thea, Amber decided to take a break from her search.

Amber sat slumped comfortably in the parlor chair facing the tv while Oliver and Thea shared the couch. Oliver held a movie up to Thea for approval.

"Oh, I've seen the movie before." She said.

"Cut me some slack, I've been gone for a while and, apparently, I missed the cinematic genius that is Zach... Galifiana--akis." Oliver looked to Thea and Amber as if to check that he said the actor's name right.

"We should watch 'The Hunger Games'," Amber suggested as she grabbed a handful of popcorn.

"No." Thea denied immediately. "I'm never watching that movie again."

"Why not?" Amber asked.

"Because if I watch it one more time, I'm gonna lose my mind." 

"What's 'The Hunger Games'?" Oliver questioned.

"It's a movie based on the first book of a trilogy," Amber explained. "And it doesn't suck."

Oliver raised an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"

Thea threw her head back with a groan. "We're gonna be here all night."

Amber ignored her aunt as she went into the issue of book-based movies. "Most of the time, when someone decides they want to make a movie based on a book, they don't base it on the book. They rearrange the plot, cut scenes, add scenes, drop characters-- they just ruin it. But in the movie for 'The Hunger Games' they literally take dialogue word for word from the book and put it in the movie. They actually follow the book."

"See what you did?" Thea gave her brother a look. "She's literally broken down both the movie and the book to analyze them and made a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the two."

"Wow." Oliver was at a loss for words.

"It was for a school project." Amber defended herself.

"I think we're gonna skip that movie for tonight." Oliver went back to the movie collection.

"Good luck finding a movie I haven't seen already," Thea said.

"How many movies have you seen?" Oliver asked incredulously.

"I mean with Mom." Thea clarified. "When you and dad disappeared she spent more and more time at home. Eventually, she stopped going out altogether."

"What snapped her out of it that time?"

"Walter," Thea answered. "One morning he showed up and, you know when he gets all British and stern-like." She switched to an exaggerated British accent. "'Moira, get dressed. We're going out for lunch'. Yeah, I mean, and it worked."

"How many times have you impersonated Walter with that accent?" Amber asked randomly.

Thea turned to the blonde with utter confusion in her eyes. "You focus on the weirdest things, you know that?"

Amber shrugged. "It's been said."

Thea and Oliver laughed at Amber's reply. Sometimes she acted so grown up that it was easy to forget she was only ten. Then moments like these happened where she said what was on her mind and reminded whoever she was conversing with that she was still just a kid.