Fractured

By Bre (dust2dust34)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Arrow.
Rating: T
Author's Notes: Part of my Questions I Can't Ask Olicity ficlet collection, which are strictly canon elaborations. I took some physical liberties with this first one.
Author's Notes 2: I just moved, ya'll, and I've been struggling to find the writing zone again. The move threw off my groove! I'm working on the tattoo AU in-between my ficlet musings, as well as another one because why not? This is a new ficlet collection strictly for my canon elaborations. If anyone has ficlet suggestions for this collection, please send 'em my way!

Summary: Post 3x12. Fractured doesn't meant broken.

He could still taste that damn tea on his tongue.

It was a viscous coat in his mouth that he couldn't get rid of. He'd had the last of Tatsu's brew that morning, choking it down - easily three times more than he should be taking, but he'd torn his stitches more than he'd thought when he'd swept out of the Glades the night before after announcing his return. He was hoping a surge of it would keep any more infection from setting in.

He could just imagine the tiny eyebrow raise Tatsu would have given him had she seen him - they had parted on genial terms, but that didn't mean she didn't still think he was a moron.

He should have been used to the sour taste, but it was more pronounced than usual, like his stomach was set to a permanent boil and kept shoving penicillin-laced stomach acid up his throat.

Oliver pulled his t-shirt off, goose bumps erupting across his skin from the cold foundry air. He shivered, the tingles heading straight for the still-healing wound in his abdomen and the shallower one on his left flank. The shivers migrated down his spine, concentrating on the bruises and cuts he'd gotten when he'd fallen off the mountain.

He was a fast healer, normally, but these bruises weren't skin-deep. They were just now starting to turn yellow, morphing into black and blue, relegated to the left side where he'd landed.

Snow wasn't the soft cushy pillow it tried to look like; the tiny ice particulates felt just like that when you hit them dead-weight from a free fall - like slamming face-first into an ice wall.

Oliver's eyes fluttered shut, and for a split second, he felt the rush of the ice cold air enveloping him midair, the weightlessness of the fall, the faces he had known he would never see again - the people he had failed - before he slammed into an outcrop of rock… Just as quickly as it came on, Oliver pushed it back, unwilling to go there.

It seemed the longer he was away from that mountain, the more his mind was forcing him to relive it.

Oliver gently peeled the stiff gauze off the wound that had nearly pierced his lung; the white was barely stained with blood now. He winced as the tape stuck to his skin, and he winced again when he felt the stitches he'd fixed up himself late last night shifting. It was agitated, but healing. He tossed it into the trash as he let out a heavy breath, letting the air out of his lungs slowly.

He shifted his shoulders, stretching his arms over his head.

It had been over a week since he'd gone to fight Ra's, who had taken his own sword and shoved it through his chest. Whatever Tatsu had done when Maseo brought him to her was fast, but it wasn't fast enough.

Still… it was preferable to what he'd felt last night.

Ra's Al Guhl could string him up and shove thirty swords in the exact same spot over and over again, and it wouldn't touch on what he'd felt when she had uttered those words.

He knew he would have hurdles with his team when he told them what he had decided. He had prepared for it, or he thought he had. He knew it was playing with fire, accepting the help from the one man in the entire world that Oliver could honestly say he hated, but… it was his only option to save Thea.

And he had to save Thea.

He had to work with Merlyn, it was his best chance to not fail against Ra's again.

Still…

He thought he'd been ready for what she might say to him, what she would think about his decision, what she would say about their parting words, about… everything. He'd forced himself to be prepared for her accepting his decision, because that was the only thing he could let himself expect. Anything else was too much, going into territory that he had been avoiding.

"I don't want to be a woman you love."

Pained regret sliced through his chest.

Oliver closed his eyes.

He had purposefully not let himself think about her since he had woken up. Because just thinking her name, seeing her face, breathing in the mixture of her shampoo and perfume… something far too similar to hope had filled his chest, like a balloon waiting to explode, and that was dangerous. She had permeated every single dream he'd had since Ra's had kicked him off that cliff… She had been the air he breathed, the world he had seen, the place he had existed in until that first painful conscious breathe.

But nothing had changed. And nothing was going to change.

Because he had said he loved her - because he did love her - but now he was back. And everything was still the same.

"I don't want to be a woman you love."

Oliver shoved the words out of his head. He couldn't afford to think about it, he couldn't afford to think about what the words meant, what she felt and how he felt.

Distractions.

They were distractions, distractions he couldn't afford.

Oliver picked up his escrima sticks, spinning his wrists freely, warming up his muscles. Despite the low-grade fever and aches, he was feeling better, and beating some of his nervous energy into a dummy sounded perfect.

Except when he slammed the stick into the center of the dummy, he felt every single vibration go right down his arm and tear through the wound in his abdomen. He clenched his jaw and tightened his hold on the stick, the edges of the tape grip digging into his palm.

His hands were shaking.

'Damn it," Oliver whispered, dropping the sticks and making tight fists, but the shaking didn't abate. It was easier to assume it was because of the wound, of the abating infection, of all the penicillin he'd inhaled, from the excitement of coming back, of seeing his city and what had become of it…

And nothing to do with a certain blonde whom he hadn't seen since she'd walked away from him last night.

The sound of the door from Verdant upstairs clicking open caught his attention.

He glanced at the clock. It was still early afternoon - too early for her to be coming in, surely, she was still working with Palmer. He wondered who it was, and why they were coming through the club.

Oliver leaned down gently and picked up the sticks, moving to put them back as light footsteps hit the stairs and made their way down. The footsteps were too light to be Diggle or Roy… maybe it was Laurel. He still needed to talk to her; rather, he still needed to yell at her and figure out what the hell she was thinking putting on Sara's suit. Seeing that flash of blonde had nearly given him a heart attack.

Bending down to grab his shirt, Oliver moved to tug it on when he saw Felicity instead.

His heart stopped at the sight of her, all the emotions he had been systematically shoving down appearing like a tidal wave in his gut that took his breath away.

She was paused at the bottom of the stairs, eyes on him, face tight and unreadable. He looked away quickly, cowardly wanting to turn and walk away, to not deal with what she had said, with what he had said, with the constant line of tension that had suddenly appeared between them the minute he said he was working with Merlyn.

But this was Felicity. And despite how much he wanted to turn and pretend like nothing had happened, he couldn't. He couldn't walk away, he couldn't not look at her.

She still didn't move and Oliver frowned, then he noticed she was balanced on one heeled foot, her other shoe in hand.

And then he saw her hands and knee, and his stomach dropped.

"Are you okay?" he asked, shirt forgotten as he moved towards her but she made a stutter step backwards, wincing when she landed on her injured foot.

Oliver froze, biting the tip of his tongue as his mind flashed back to the alley the night before. It had been deliberate then, her shaking her head as she backed away from him… now it was more like a gut reaction to stay away from him.

He'd thought it had been painful then… this time was worse.

"I didn't know you were here," she said, trying to go for conversational but it fell flat, as flat as her tone, and that made the penicillin soup in his gut churn. Felicity was not flat. She didn't do anything in half measures - hearing her voice void of life, because of him, made his insides twist.

He didn't respond, and she limped towards the medical area, making a wide berth around him. He matched her, sidestepping so there was adequate space between them, keeping his eye on her as she studiously avoided looking at him.

Her ankle was red and swollen, and she had a nasty gash on her knee, blood starting to dry in an ugly smear down her shin. Her palms were covered in scratches - it looked like she'd twisted her ankle and gone down. She dropped her bag on the med table and her shoe - the heel was broken in a jagged cut - and started opening drawers.

Oliver bit his tongue harder to keep from going to help her, and he still didn't move.

He wanted to want to turn around and give her space, go back to the loft maybe and wait for dark to fall, go see if Thea needed help upstairs, go do… anything, anything but stand there and watch her, probably making her feel uncomfortable and even more agitated than she already was…

Instead, he asked, "Felicity, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she replied stringently. She dabbed some alcohol onto a cotton ball and leaned over gingerly. She hissed when she accidentally put pressure on her bad ankle and she tipped over, the med table keeping her from falling.

Oliver was at her side before either of them could blink.

"Here," he said, grabbing her elbow, grabbing the cotton ball from her fingers.

Felicity stood up, pointedly grabbing the table for balance.

Oliver gripped her arm tighter, thinking he should just swing her up on the table and clean the wounds for her, but she stiffened, and he stopped.

She gently removed her arm from his grasp.

It felt like someone dragging sandpaper across his fingertips as she pulled away from him.

"I said," she said softly, grabbing another cotton ball, her face tight with pain and red with the effort. "I'm fine." She spared him a glance and a smile that was more like muscle memory than anything resembling a grin. "Thanks though."

Oliver pinched his lips, and gave her a short nod, stepping back. He waved awkwardly towards the stairs as she hobbled enough to remove her other shoe, and said, "I'll… I, uh, need to go talk to Thea."

"Mm," she said by way of response, pouring more alcohol on the cotton ball, and the blasé sound was like a knife to the gut all over again.

"If you need anything…"

"I'll be fine," she said again and Oliver nodded, clenching his jaw to keep from saying anything. He turned to leave.

Her choked gasp sounded small in the large space, and he realized too late he still wasn't wearing a shirt.

Oliver froze, knowing exactly what she was seeing, but he didn't turn. He just stopped.

Neither spoke and silence reigned for what seemed an eternity. His back felt like it was on fire, like he could feel the path her eyes were tracing as she took in the damage on his body. He felt a rush of foolishness go through him, that anyone had to see him like this, had to see what he'd been left with as a reminder of his failure, especially her.

He still didn't move though, and he jumped when he heard the shuffle of her legs against her skirt nearly right behind him. He moved to ask her what she was doing when she reached out and placed her hand on his left shoulder blade.

Oliver's eyes snapped shut as a jolt of electricity snapped from her fingers and zipped through his bones. She didn't move it, her hand resting on him, barely breathing, and after a heavy moment he bowed his head.

For the first time since he'd woken up in that tiny cabin with Maseo and Tatsu hovering over him, Oliver felt all the tension slip away. His shoulders dropped with a heavy exhale, the warmth of her hand against him doing more healing than his body had been able to do in the entire last week.

She seeped into his skin, spreading through him like a warm embrace.

He leaned back into her touch, barely, but just enough. Just enough to hear her take a shaky breath, and then she was stepping away from him, her fingers dragging across his skin, leaving behind a ghostly imprint of her touch.

Oliver's chest felt so tight he could barely breath.

He turned his head in acknowledgement, but he didn't dare look back at her. He didn't trust himself. To not say the wrong thing, to not give her what she had just given him, to not tell her what had happened, and why needed to do this plan with Merlyn, to not explain to her that demons he hadn't realized he'd brought back with him were starting to rear their ugly heads in his mind and soul, spreading through him like a plague…

Without a word, he took a step forward. And then another. And then he was grabbing his shirt and slipping it on, not bothering to hide the pained wince when it stretched his bruised muscles and stitched hole in his stomach.

He didn't look back as he left her behind.

The End

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