Disclaimer: I do not own nor make profit off of Arrow. It belongs to The CW and DC Comics, etc.
A/N: I found myself writing the preface fast, but it's still going to be slow updates, so be aware of that. This is a multi-chapter story in which the basic premise is "What if Felicity had been a part of the show's plan all along?" It explores season 1 as if Felicity had been on the show from the pilot, but I will keep it as close to the original episode plots as possible. Whenever I write about Oliver's memories of the island from his own perspective, I plan to include any and all updated information I have from the show. Also, POV will mostly switch between Oliver and Felicity, with some additional scenes from other characters' POV. This story and Seven Days To A Million are my focus for the Arrow fandom right now. Enjoy!
Preface: Human
There were times when Oliver Queen wished he could disappear.
A flash, a glimmer, and then nothing, but for the empty remains of his old life trying to drag themselves to the surface again. It was the times when everything was too much. Too much noise, too much pain, too much company, too much pressure to be something he had never been and never could be. Even if he hadn't lived through utter hell, his supposed five years of isolation from constant company and affection would drive anyone wild with the need to escape those very things.
No one understood why he couldn't feel the simplest of emotions without intense calculation, or why he couldn't eat rich, complex foods without forcing himself to remember some glimpse of what it might once have tasted like. No one tried to understand what had changed or what had been irreparably broken. It was business as usual; Oliver Queen returns. The prodigal son comes home, the wandering child comes back to his family.
He simply couldn't understand it. It didn't make any sense in the grand scheme of things. Not that Oliver's life had ever truly made sense in the first place, but he tried to hope for some logic behind the path his life had taken. Particularly since the Gambit sank into the sea five years ago.
How many times had Oliver waited and wished for the home of his youth? The place where his little sister, his mother, his best friend, and his former girlfriend still waited for him? Oliver couldn't even count the times; every thought became consumed by the want of safe, familiar ground on which to tread. Every danger brought a heightened desire to be home.
Home had become unrecognizable and frightening; home had become a place he no longer felt comfortable in. He wished it were different. More than anything he had yet desired, Oliver wanted to feel truly at home. Yet how he could feel at home in a house or in a city, if he couldn't feel 'at home' within himself? That was the question which nagged Oliver incessantly in his waking hours.
Of course, 'waking hours' meant most of the day and night, because Oliver Queen didn't sleep anymore. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw his father pulling the trigger or Yao Fei with a bullet in his forehead. He saw Shado fall to her side, a bullet in her temple. He saw Sara screaming, her hand reaching for him with one last desperate move as the crushing flow of ocean ripped her away from him not once, but twice. He saw Slade lying dead with an arrow in his eye. Every time Oliver tried to let himself rest, the past came to churn his mind with guilt. He had so much blood on his hands. Not merely because of the kills on the island or elsewhere, but because of those four lives he could never get back.
Oliver Queen was a killer. Unyielding in doling out justice where it was needed and in whatever manner worked most effectively. The island had thoroughly purged him of that part of himself which asked questions before shooting. The part of himself which wondered why death was necessary. The part of himself that saw good in other people.
Would he ever gain that part of himself back?
It sounded ridiculous to hope for; fantastical, even. Oliver knew better than anyone how far a heart could darken, how deeply it could become twisted beyond all hope of recovery. Nothing else seemed possible for him.
In his dreams, what few good ones he had experienced in the past five years, Oliver wished something in his life could make him see the good in people again. He wished something could make him feel like a human being again.
But Oliver Queen was no longer human.
A/N: Look for Chapter 1: Distraction, up next!