Title: Change
Author: Some1FoundMe
Rating: K+
Summary: Sometimes a change is necessary. Sometimes it is the only thing that will get you through. Set after "No One Else" and "Strong Enough".
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I own no part of "Arrow" or Stephen Amell… darn.
Author's Note: I got a few requests on "Strong Enough" for a follow up explaining what happened to Felicity and I'm sure this isn't what a lot of people had imagined, but this is what I came up with.
Change
She doesn't say a word to either of them as she descends the metal staircase into their lair. She refuses to look up as she crosses the room and situates herself in front of her computers. They've stopped mid-workout. She can hear Oliver panting with exertion. She can feel Diggle's eyes on her back. But she won't turn to face them.
It takes a long moment before either of them moves or speaks. She hears murmured voices before a door closes and they are left alone in the room. Oliver closes the distance between them, still breathing heavily even as he comes to a stop beside her. His fingers touch the back of her head gently, as if testing the texture of her hair.
"You cut it."
She swallows hard, giving him one sharp nod. She doesn't speak.
"And changed the color."
Her eyes are suddenly wet and she can't explain to him what is happening. It's too painful. Too fresh in her memory. Which is ridiculous because it's been years since it happened. They've talked about this. They've sort of talked about it. She had tried on more than one occasion to tell him the story. They'd been lying on her sofa only a few days earlier, his fingers tracing circles around the tattoo she'd shown him, and the words had been on the tip of her tongue. She had let them fade.
He turns her chair around, his finger under her chin forcing her to lift her eyes to him.
"Tell me what's going on."
He crouches down in front of her. Her hands are shaking in her lap. Their relationship so far has been nothing but painful memories, painful confessions. She can't remember the last time that she felt like herself. It has been almost five months since Slade Wilson's men tormented her. Five months of a painfully slow recovery. She's been seeing a therapist, someone who specializes in post-traumatic stress disorder, but even that isn't enough. How can it be when she cannot tell her doctor half of what she's been through? Her cover story is thin at best and she worries that everyone can see through it.
But it isn't her encounter with Slade's men that prompted her to change her appearance.
The anniversary of her mother's death is upon her and this year, more than any other, she is heartbroken by it. She feels so alone. Alone because the one person that she really wants to talk to about what she went through, about what she's going through with Oliver, is no longer around for her to talk to.
"I – I just needed a change. Something different."
He lifts his hand to touch the red-brown hair framing her face. The cut is sharp, angular, and completely different from her normally long, straight locks. She isn't sure what exactly made her do something so drastic but she'd walked into the salon and requested something short and dark.
"I like it. It's beautiful."
He doesn't tell her that it's too dark. He doesn't tell her that it isn't her. She knows that's what he's thinking though because it's what she thought the moment she saw her reflection. The lightness that's always been inside of her, the optimism that she's always felt the need to project has vanished. It's like he stole a piece of her soul. It's like every strike against her skin stole some small part of her sanity.
"Please don't, Oliver. Just tell me you hate it. I can handle it."
The fake smile on his face falters. He has always been a terrible liar. She can see through him any day so why he even bothers she doesn't know. His hand falls from her hair to rest atop both of hers where they continue to tremble in her lap.
"I don't hate it, sweetheart, I just don't understand what this is. Your hands are shaking."
She takes a steadying breath, fighting to hold the tears that have threatened to fall all day. She casts her eyes downward, knowing that if she looks at him, she will break down. She should've told him about her mother months ago. She should've told him long before the incident with Slade's men but he'd never asked. That hadn't stopped her from telling him other personal information, from babbling and reveling things that she had never really meant to reveal. But she hadn't ever talked to him about her family.
"My mother – My mother was killed in a car accident my sophomore year of college."
The words escape her in a broken and uneven tone but she cannot control them. A tear escapes her eye, making a single track down her cheek. She doesn't bother lifting a hand to wipe it away.
"She was on her way to Boston to see me," she explains, "I'd been at school for a couple of months and she had planned this whole excursion because I had a couple of days off. But she never made it. The morning that she was supposed to get into the city I got a phone call from the highway patrol. There'd been an accident on the interstate. It had been raining and foggy. There was a multi-car pileup. My mom she – she died at the scene."
Oliver squeezes her hands encouragingly. She shakes her head, more tears falling. She is tired of crying, tired of being filled with this overwhelming pain. Her chest is tight, like all of the muscles in her are revolting against her. She has been struggling to breathe for months.
"What about your dad?" he asks softly, "Where was he?"
She chokes for a minute, a sob stuck in her throat. She swallows it down though, only speaking when she is sure that she won't cry anymore.
"My dad hasn't been a part of my life in a long time. It was always just me and my mom. She was it, Oliver. She was the only family that I had. She was my best friend."
"You miss her."
She lifts her eyes to his quickly. He is watching her, his expression sympathetic. She wants to snap at him because of course she misses her mother. But she doesn't. She doesn't because she knows that he understands. What happened to her father was different. His father committed suicide to save Oliver's life. But that didn't mean that he couldn't sympathize with her. She knew that he missed his father. She'd never heard him say as much aloud but any child who'd lost a parent knew that there was never a day when you didn't miss that person that you'd lost.
"I need her, Oliver, I need her now more than ever. I – I don't have anyone that I can talk to."
His hands find their way to her neck and face, holding her so that she cannot look away from him. His thumb slides across her cheek bone, catching her tears.
"You can talk to me. You can always talk to me."
She shakes her head again, "I can't talk to you about you. About us. Not always."
His lips quirk up slightly.
"I will always be here to listen to you, Felicity. It doesn't matter what it is that you want o talk about, if you need to talk, I'm here."
The sincerity in his voice comforts her. She knows that talking to him is not the same as talking to her mother. She knows that there will still be things that she won't be comfortable saying to him but knowing that he is there for her is more important.
Self-consciously, she touches her hair, tucking it behind her ear.
"On a scale of one to ten, how bad is it?"
He takes her hand in his, bringing it to his lips.
"It isn't bad, just different. How close to your natural color is that?" he asks.
She shrugs, "It's not. My hair is brown. Sort of a chocolate brown. This is… I think she called it Dark Cherry."
He hums his approval, leaning in to press a swift kiss to her tearstained cheek. He lingers and she doesn't fight him. The feel of his arms coming around her, the heat of his chest, it reminds her that she is still alive. She is still alive and if her mother were with her, she would encourage her to move beyond her fear and heal. Her mother would tell her that she has people around her to support her. She would tell her that she was strong enough to survive this. She was strong enough to pull through.
"She would've liked you," she tells him softly, "My mom. She would've loved you, actually."
He smiles now, the full blown smile that he seems to reserve for her. She would be lying if she tried to deny that she loves that smile.
"I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to meet her. If she was anything like you, I'm sure I would've loved her, too."
Emotion swells in her at his words. Fresh tears are in her eyes but she blinks them away, forcing herself not to cry again. Instead she throws the weight of her body into his and knocks him off balance. They fall together to the floor.
"I don't know what I'd do without you, Oliver."
His lips are in her hair and his strong arms are locked around her. His words are so soft that she barely hears them but they are there.
"I promise you, you'll never find out."