Title: Someone
Word Count: 3,193
Pairing: Oliver Queen & Felicity Smoak (Olicity)
Rating: T
A/N: I have just recently started watching 'Arrow' and as a hard-core RomaChlark Shipper from years past, it's really no surprise that this pairing weaseled it's way into my heart. What is surprising is that I thought I had hung up my fanfiction cape. But these two have awakened the creative spark once again and I couldn't help but getting something out! Its nothing much or even substantial; just an expansion of a scene that I really enjoyed and thought could use a little more charge. Set in 'Salvation' (1x18) dealing with Felicity witnessing her first death to Oliver finally stepping off the island.
As I have said, I am a fanfiction author from years back with Chlark, but this is my first Olicity and with each new pairing comes new insecurities. Any OOC or other weird things, I sincerely apologize for! I have had this approved by two other Olicity shippers, so hopefully it will do these 2 wonderful characters and their relationship justice. I hope you enjoy!
Gunshots rang out and bullets ricocheted off the walls. There was a sickening noise of them ripping through flesh. The man on the screen hung limply and Felicity felt her stomach heave.
"Find the right address, now!" Oliver yelled in her ear, the anger in his voice causing her skin to prickle. She went clammy and she knew whatever she'd had for lunch was fixing to make an encore appearance.
"He's…" She tried. She couldn't say it. She took the comlink from her ear and tossed it on the desk, pushing the chair away and scrambling out, hurtling away towards to restroom with a trembling hand pressed to her mouth. Oliver, be damned. He could figure it out on his own.
She weaved quickly through the boxes and crates that littered the Arrow Cave, as Diggle affectionately called the basement Oliver and he spent most of their time. She wasn't going to make it all the way upstairs to the ladies restroom. In the back of her mind, she made a mental note to speak to Oliver about some much needed additions to the space if he continued to insist on operating in a cavern.
Turning sharply, she found an old painter's bucket and ripped the lid off just in time. Felicity closed her eyes tight and gripped the bucket as if it were a life preserver. She'd never been a fan of vomiting. She did what she could to avoid it. Even as a grown woman, she couldn't get through a movie or a show when there was puking. She even plugged her ears until it was over. Sometimes even a good gag from someone was enough to make her body tense and roil.
She flinched when she felt someone lift her hair and rub her back comfortingly. Felicity stayed hunched over the bucket until she was sure nothing else was coming up, taking deep and steady breaths. The back of her throat burned and her nostrils were filled with the stench of sick. She'd found Oliver in the back of her car, bloodied and bruised. She'd gotten a crash course in First Aid when Oliver and Diggle both came dragging in after a fight with a street gang one night. She could take this violent, rough-and-tumble line of work she'd somehow stumbled into. All of that paled in comparison to seeing a warm and quivering human life snuffed out right in front of her eyes.
The image of Carnahan flooded unbidden into her mind. Felicity squeezed her eyes shut again, preparing for another wave. She gave a sigh of relief when nothing happened. She sat back, falling on her butt, legs out to the side. Diggle crouched next to her, his hand still making soothing circles up and down her back. She pressed her forehead into her hand.
"None of this is your fault," Diggle said quietly.
Felicity couldn't help but feel the weight of the life on her shoulders. She opened her eyes, pushing her glasses up on her nose and looked at John. "Yeah? Tell that to Oliver. He sounded pretty hot under the hood." If he'd been wearing the hood, that is.
Diggle pushed the bucket away and sat down beside Felicity. He wrapped a brotherly arm around the young woman. "That was just 'battle' mode. Every soldier -"
"I'm not a soldier, Digg," Felicity interjected angrily. "And that man was not a causality of war." Her jaw tightened. She looked away, staring at a skeleton wall of thick boards. "That was a human being that was shot because -" Felicity broke off. She was dangerously close to saying something she shouldn't. Carnahan was dead because someone had decided that they could be judge, jury and executioner. The same thing Oliver spent his nights doing. Thankfully, not the executioner part. At least, not that Felicity knew of recently. Oliver was different, though. He didn't terrorize. And he didn't broadcast it over every wireless or electrical device for the entire population of Starling City to see. And he always gave the opportunity for second chances. No, Oliver was nothing like this man; but Oliver had killed. Felicity wondered if you ever got used to that. One second and then the next, just… gone.
Felicity pulled her legs up and then stood shakily to her feet, teetering in her heels. She quickly stepped out of them, the concrete floor chilly against the soles of her bare feet. Diggle stood with her, a hand on her arm to steady her.
"I'm fine," she said curtly. "I just need a moment alone."
"Felicity –"
"Digg, I need to be alone," Felicity repeated, her voice echoing in the large space. "Please," she added softly.
Diggle nodded. He grabbed the bucket.
"Digg, leave the –"
He turned and shook his head. Felicity gave a small smile. She wouldn't let him comfort her but he could dispose of… that. She pressed a hand to her stomach. She made a grumpy face when she realized it would be a good long while before she ate sushi again. She loved sushi. Leaning her hips against the work table, she forced her mind to go blank. Flitting her eyes around, she searched for something to fidget with. She did her best zoning when she could fidget. Her gaze landed on a broken arrow. She took a deep breath in through her nose. Reaching out tentatively, she grasped the arrow in her fingers. She held it out in front of her, feeling its weight.
Was it worse than bullets? When the arrows flew and buried themselves into fragile flesh? Did she want to know? Would it make it easier to deal with? She knew Oliver had killed with these. She turned it over in her hands, concentrating on the shine and the shape of the arrowhead. Even as evil as some people were, did they deserve that kind of pain? And who was he to decide that? Who were she and Dig?
What was she even doing here, she asked herself seriously. She'd only joined because she wanted to help find Walter! But the leads on Walter were coming fewer and farther between. She's wasn't cut out for this. She was just the IT girl from the 5th floor, sub-level. She'd been psycho to think she could handle this. To think she was competent enough help this masked vigilante and his grand plan to save Starling City from destruction. Diggle was right. This was a war. And she wasn't fit for combat.
She heard footsteps on the stairs. She knew it was Oliver. She kept eyes trained on the arrow, turning it over and over in her hands.
Oliver stepped off the last stair, slowing his pace when he saw her; saw her face. It was drawn and she fiddled with something in her hands that she was focusing all her energy on. He cut his eyes around, looking for Digg and not finding him. Oliver couldn't believe Digg had left Felicity alone, not after what she'd seen and it angered him.
"Where's Diggle?" He asked, setting his helmet down on the table Felicity was perched against. His eyes studied her face, trying to see beneath the calm veneer to what lay beneath. He needed to know how she was reacting to this. When Diggle's voice had come across the com-link, Oliver had a sinking feeling in his gut.
"I asked him to leave me alone," Felicity responded, turning her head briefly, watching Oliver lay his helmet down before returning to her hands in which she held one of his arrows. "In my loud voice."
Oliver stood at the head of the table, a few steps from Felicity. He didn't know what to do; what to say. He'd seen so much death that he'd almost become desensitized. He didn't like it and tried to avoid it at all costs, for him and for others, but something in Felicity's posture spoke to him. This had shaken her. He laid a hand on the table, not sure if he was to comfort or console or commiserate. He knew she needed something, though. She was too quiet and it unnerved him. Her shoulders drooped and to Oliver, it seemed she bore a weight too heavy for her.
"This wasn't your fault," he said finally, his eyes flitting around until coming back to rest on the subdued woman before him.
"I was supposed to find Carnahan," she began, her voice thick and Oliver could tell she was close to crying. "And I was the one who sent you that bogus location." She still saw the locations jumping on the screen from place to place as the broadcast point seemed to jump and leap around. Hindsight being 20/20, Felicity began running alternate scenarios in the back of her mind of what she could have done better, what she could have done faster. And in the end, it never would have mattered because each location had been a dead end.
"I've never seen anybody die," she told him in the silence that surrounded them.
And Oliver had seen too many. It wasn't something he'd wish for anyone, least of all Felicity who was so charming and refreshing in her innocence and sense of justice. Her fingers twirled the arrow faster, a tell to the turmoil and guilt that must have been spinning inside her. Hey eyes lost their focus and were staring somewhere beyond and Oliver knew she was seeing it again.
"Hey," he gently, reaching out again tentatively, bringing her back to the present, to him, and not to the nightmare she'd witnessed. She raised her eyes to him, open and trusting. Oliver realized she was looking to him to make this okay for her. He swallowed. What could he say?
"This is the – thing with what we do," Oliver began, not really sure himself where to go. He had never been good at the heart to hearts. But Felicity needed this and maybe, so did he. "Sometimes we lose."
Oliver's voice was resigned. Felicity turned her face away. That hadn't been what she wanted to hear from her fearless leader. There was truth in what he said, though. A harsh truth. And when they lost, someone died. It seemed like such a heavy burden to bear alone. She'd never been a girl who needed someone but from somewhere inside the thought of another person waiting for her at home, especially after a day like today, swam up with a yearning. Although, how did you even begin to explain a day like today? It wasn't like your normal, stressful day at the office with paper cuts and rogue copy machines.
"Maybe being alone is better," Felicity ventured. "I'm not seeing anyone currently but…" She turned her to look at him, her eyes sad. "If I were, I don't know how I'd tell them about today."
Dealing with things alone for so long, the stark need in Felicity's eyes to share something like this took Oliver aback. It'd been so long since he'd had someone or wanted someone. Things went south, he moved on. He didn't stop to contemplate the meaning. He wondered if it wasn't his time on the island that had changed him so but the time he spent keeping himself cut off from other people.
Felicity's stare awoke something within him; a need he hadn't felt in so long. The need for another person. He could no longer meet her eyes, worried about what might show in his own. He looked off beyond her head. He wanted to reach out more, to show her he felt the same. That this life that had been taken meant something to him, too. That what she was going through meant something to him, that he'd been there. He took a hesitant step toward her and stretched out a hand. He could feel her angling her body toward him very slightly. He could feel the warmth of her exposed arm just teasing his fingertips as they grazed her skin. Instead, he clenched his jaw and skimmed to the arrow she twirled in her hands, plucking it from her fingers and laying it down on the table next to his helmet.
He turned and walked away, needing to get away from her searching eyes and the wants she'd unearthed in him he'd long thought buried.
Felicity listened to Oliver retreating further into the sublevel of his club. She let out a heavy sigh and dropped her arms to her sides. She'd thought for a moment, Oliver would let down the shields. Pushing away from the table, she walked back to her IT station. Felicity wasn't out to smash a wrecking ball against the brick walls Oliver kept around his emotions. She respected him too much for that. He would open up to the person of his choosing when the timing was right. She had been hoping, however, to add some depth to their friendship; if you could even call it that. She wasn't looking for anything with Oliver (no matter how many times she had wipe the drool off her chin after watching him go through his paces) other than a good and trusting working relationship. Because like it or not, whether she was cut out for this or not, she was here, she was doing it. She believed in it; she believed in him. And she hoped he knew that.
Sinking down into her chair, she swiveled to the computer interfaces. She sat for a time looking at the monitors.
"This is the thing with what we do. Sometimes we lose."
"Not this time!" Felicity stated adamantly. She was Felicity Meghan Smoak, top of her class at MIT in 2009 at the ripe old age of 21. She didn't lose.
Grasping the lip of the desk and pulling herself up to the machines, she quickly began bringing up the footage of the execution and began isolating particulars.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are, psychopath. It's time for your day in court," Felicity said to herself, determined to weed out whatever she could to have some idea of where this guy might be.
"Atta girl," Digg said softly as he came up beside her, leaning against the desk and giving her a proud smile. Felicity gave him a tremulous smile before turning back to the work at hand, setting her shoulders as she pulled up software after software to analyze different sections of the video she had.
Diggle stood up straight, stepping back a bit and crossing his arms, watching her work. He caught movement to his left and turned his head. Oliver stood just beyond, a ghost of a smile haunting his lips. The two men's eyes met and Digg nodded. Oliver returned it before his eyes slipped back to the slender woman oblivious to anything that wasn't on the screen in front of her for a fraction of a second and then wandered off.
Oliver watched Laurel walk away. He stood there, watching her until she disappeared amongst the many people meandering outside of Verdant. He turned and headed for the separate entrance that led down to the basement. He could feel tension in his jaw. He didn't intend of making good of his offer of lunch or coffee but it had felt good to ask.
Punching in the code to the secured door, he listened as the lock clinked and then slipped inside. Making his way down the stairs, he turned at the bottom and headed toward the light under which Felicity and Digg sat under. He discarded his jacket and tossed it on top of the crates he still hadn't bothered to unpack yet.
Digg looked up from the laptop in his hands when he heard Oliver approaching. "Thea's friend is upstairs."
"I saw," Oliver replied, trying to breathe calmly instead of running back up there and dragging that street hood off his little sister. Thea had been just 12 the last time he saw her; now she was wearing mini dresses and tonguing punks. There was no way to prepare for that.
At his voice, Felicity turned the chair around.
"You probably saw that they were very happy to see each other, if you know what I mean," Felicity said with a tongue-in-cheek tone. It was sweet, though. It made her think of her first serious boyfriend. Her father didn't like him but she didn't care. To her, he'd hung the moon. She was lost for a second in her nostalgic musings when she looked back at Oliver and Diggle. By their faces, she knew she'd just inserted her pretty electric blue pump right into her bright pink lipsticked mouth. Digg sighed and raised his brows at her while Oliver looked as if she'd just taken his bow and shot a puppy with one of his fancy arrows.
"Which you probably don't want to talk about because she's your baby sister," Felicity rambled when her faux pas dawned on her, her fingers circling each other in the air as she rambled because it wasn't enough for her lips to flap uncontrollably when she stepped in a big pile of awkward. She circled completely to her computer, balling her hands into fists. "Right," she finished on a whisper. She decided she would just leave to post-bad-guy-defeating-chats to Diggle from now on.
"You okay?" Digg asked.
Oliver looked away from Felicity to Digg. "I'm getting there. Thank you."
He looked back to Felicity who sat small in her chair, staring with little focus at her computers. He'd been harsh with her before. He didn't want their relationship to be just that of vigilante and sidekick. Oliver wanted her to feel comfortable with him; like he did with her. He knew this work could take its toll on a person. Felicity wasn't battle-hardened like him and Diggle. And he would never forgive himself if she ever became calloused.
"Psst," he hissed loudly as he walked up to her chair.
She startled a little, crossing her arms but tilting to face him.
"By the way, if you ever need to tell someone about your day," he said, looking down at her with sincere affection. She gave him a small smile and it warmed his chest. "You can tell me."
Oliver reached out all the way this time, cupping her shoulder in his palm. He squeezed tightly but gently, hoping it would somehow convey all the things he couldn't put into words about how much he valued Felicity and the spark of life she'd brought into his.
Felicity pressed her lips into a thin line. "Thanks," she whispered as ducked her head, her eyes resting where his hand still touched her shoulder. It was warm and the pressure comforting. She knew Oliver wasn't a man of many words and the gesture touched her. In that small space of time, he'd opened up to her and she felt privileged to have the confidence of this man who had taken it upon himself to stand guard over Starling City.
With a simple squeeze, they went beyond vigilante and tech support. They were friends. They were each other's 'someone'.