Star City, 2031
"Do you remember the last time you wanted to quit?" Felicity asked. "It was after Chase tortured you. You stood in front of Dig and Curtis and I and told us that it was over. But that wasn't true. It took time, but eventually you picked yourself up and kept fighting."
"That was different," Oliver replied in a voice empty of emotion. "I had the team then. And you. I hadn't lost everything." Felicity noticed he didn't mention William or Thea. She didn't want to know the reason why.
"You haven't lost everything," she said gently, trying to make him understand. "You still have me." Oliver didn't respond. The silence that stretched between them was oppressive.
"JJ's shutting me out," Felicity said finally, breaking it. "Ever since he put on the hood he's been pulling farther and farther away, but now I think I've completely lost him. He won't let me help him anymore. I've tried telling him that no Green Arrow ever saved the city on his own, but he won't listen to me. He's determined to go it alone." Her shoulders lifted in a half shrug. "There's no place for Overwatch anymore." Oliver shook his head.
"There will always be a place for Overwatch," he said quietly. There was a certain affection in the way he said her codename that she'd missed hearing. "Whatever form the team takes, you will always belong on it." His words warmed her heart, brought her hope when she'd had none, which made what she had to do all the more difficult. Oliver was already so close to the edge; she feared this might break him completely.
"I have to leave, Oliver," she managed finally, deciding that the blunt approach was the best approach. "I can't let Grant Wilson get his hands on anything we've been working on. I don't want to find out what he might do with it. There's a warehouse on Adams and O'Neil...everything will be safe there. But I have to leave."
"Are you coming back?" Oliver asked. Felicity wished he hadn't. The only answer she could give him wasn't the one he wanted to hear.
"I don't know," she said truthfully. They had made a promise a long time ago that they would always be honest with each other. She didn't intend to break it now. Oliver sighed, slumping forward like a marionette with its strings cut. Felicity expected an argument on his part, some sort of protest, but instead he only nodded, once, a resigned gesture. That scared her more than any of the possible consequences of leaving that she's considered.
"Okay," Oliver said, his voice little more than a low rumble in the back of his throat. "Do what you have to do." Felicity nodded and stood. As she reached the elevator, she heard him say, "I'll wait for you" so quietly that he must have thought she wouldn't. She paused, took a deep breath, and left the lair for what she feared would be the last time
Fifteen years later
Felicity didn't know what had brought her back here. After so long, it seemed crazy to assume that Oliver would still be where she left him. But she knew him- facing an undefeatable enemy, his first instinct would be to go to ground, and this was the last place Grant Wilson would look for him, and thus the safest place for him to hide.
"Oliver?" she called into the darkness, a hopeful tremor in her voice.
"Get out," came the reply, the familiar voice ragged and creaky with age. "You left me when I needed you. You don't get to come walking back into my life now." Felicity knew Oliver well enough to know that he didn't actually mean that, that he was just lashing out in the hopes that she would give up and leave, but it still hurt.
"That's not fair," she said firmly, trying to speak as though she was still Overwatch and he was still the Green Arrow, and it was up to her to put hope back in his heart. "You know why I left. Why I had to. Please. I just want to talk."
"So talk," Oliver growled from wherever he was in the lair.
"I want to talk to you," Felicity implored. "Not to the shadows." Somewhere in the darkness, there was a rustle and a clatter, and Oliver emerged into one of the squares weak daylight that had managed to penetrate the otherwise all encompassing darkness of the lair. A gasp escaped Felicity before she could stop it. Oliver's face was haggard, his shoulders stooped. He looked like he had aged a hundred years since she'd last seen him, not fifteen.
"I know," he said. "I look terrible." His teasing smile was a shadow of what Felicity remembered. Oliver was a shadow of what she remembered. The beaten, broken old man standing before her was a stranger. She wasn't sure the Oliver Queen she'd known even existed anymore.
"Oh, Oliver," she breathed, her voice full of sorrow. She took a single, cautious step forward, and in the same instant Oliver closed the distance between them. For a moment, they stood still, both unsure of what move to make. Then Oliver slumped forward and rested his forehead against Felicity's. She reached up to curl her hands around the back of his neck. He collapsed beneath her touch, until it seemed that if she weren't holding him he would crumple to the floor. Standing in such a vulnerable position, breathing each other's air, made a dam break somewhere inside her.
"I'm so sorry," she said in a trembling voice, scarcely louder than a whisper. "I never should have left. I always meant to return, but things just never seemed to go my way, and I left you to fight your demons alone, and I'm so sorry-"
"Hey, ssssh, it's okay," Oliver soothed. "It's okay. You did what you had to do. I...I know I didn't handle it very well, but I've made my peace with it. You have nothing to apologize for." He reached up to brush away the tears streaming down her cheeks, and for a moment he was the man she remembered, the one she'd fallen in love with. The one she'd married. Then he pulled back, widening the space between them, and the moment was gone. But Felicity wasn't ready to let go of it. Not yet. She pulled Oliver back toward her and kissed him, gently, feather light, the barest brushing of her lips against his. When she pulled back, he was studying her face like it held the answers to all the questions he had never dared to ask.
"Felicity," he whispered, and it wasn't until that moment that she realized how much she'd missed hearing the way her name had power when he said it, the way he could make it mean a hundred different things. This time, what he was saying was "Promise me you'll never leave me again."
"I promise," Felicity said, her voice steely with conviction and quavering with emotion. If Oliver was surprised that after fifteen years she hadn't lost her ability to understand the things he said without saying them, he didn't show it. "I promise I'll never leave your side again. Whatever comes next, we'll face it together. I promise." It occurred to her that she'd said "I promise" three times in as many sentences, but she didn't care. She'd say it as many times as she needed to, as many times as Oliver needed her to, for the rest of their lives, however long that turned out to be.