Well you see her when you fall asleep but never to touch and never to keep 'cause you loved her too much and you dived too deep
Let Her Go Passenger
A/N: Thanks goes out to Tumblr for the prompt/inspiration. This started as one thing and ended as another.
The figure on the roof was as still as death, the plumes of exhaust from the ventilation shafts of the Vietnamese restaurant below him providing the perfect, inconspicuous cover. On the surface his moves were fluid, eyes steady and reflexes coiled, hand ready to spring for the arrows in the quiver strapped to his back, fingers ready to draw on the string, aim and loose on his target. Beneath the hood, sweat slipped down the bridge of his nose, seeping into the corner of his right eye, burning there for a moment before the feeling passed. The most recent scar on his back ebbed with the pain of infection, constant and without heed – he was told it had mostly healed. It didn't feel like it. In the back of his mind he wondered if that was the point – a long reminder that he was branded, property. By the time it healed fully he would not need the reminder – he would be one of them with mind, body and soul, Al Sah-him, heir to the demon.
It had been two months. It was an estimate at best in Nanda Parbat; time there passed marked only by the sunrise and the sunset and the chirping of birds coming and going from somewhere in the catacombs. The weather remained a constant, seasons indistinguishable in the heat of the day and the cold of the night. It was unlike here in Starling City where the bitterness of winter remained until late spring. He had been sure two months had passed when he arrived here on the orders of Ra's to hunt down a traitor to the League and the weather had warmed since April – the last time he had seen her, all of her.
The memory pushed itself to the front of his mind; her lips on his, his hands everywhere, trying to memorize each delicate curve of her body, imprinting her in his mind so he could see her in the darkness when he closed his eyes; the sounds she made when he gave her what she wanted, what he wanted, what they had wanted for so long. It was just ironic that it was their beginning at his end, the end of Oliver Queen. Oliver Queen could have happily given her what she wanted for the rest of his life at those three words, the release and euphoria the very sound of those three syllables had given him in the way only her voice could have. Oliver Queen wanted that, wanted her, always.
He peered over the side of the three-story building down onto street level, from here he could see it all. It was quiet in this part of town, far away from the foundry and the Glades – he had never worried when Felicity was home by herself, this was the part of town trouble avoided. However, it was clear someone was worrying tonight.
John Diggle's car pulled up outside the brownstone, the driver side door popping open and the man that he had called brother stepped out. John started to make his way around the front of the car before the passenger stepped out and flicked her hands at him to go back. Felicity Soak slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder, tugging at the hair that had been trapped under it and letting it fan out over her shoulders. A feeling stirred within him at that moment.
Oliver Queen had fallen in love with that woman in a collection of little moments: the way she joyously showed off her tech skills, the sound of worry in her voice as she guided him against those who wished to do him harm, the way she would not sit back and take it when he raised his voice, his tone deepened and others backed down – the eldest Queen had a weakness for strong women and Felicity Smoak was no exception. She pushed back. It had startled him at first, this petite blond with spunk, but he had come to rely on her and the utter faith she'd had in him when even he didn't have faith in himself. Felicity Smoak had been his compass, always steering him back, always leading him home, always pushing him and building him up. Felicity had seen the light inside of him, she had seen the good that he thought he had lost when he had come back from Lian Yu and Hong Kong.
In spite of himself, Oliver Queen was a good man because of her. Oliver Queen could have happily given her what she wanted for the rest of his life. Al Sah-him could not. Al Sah-him was a thing that lurked in the darkness, a killer, ruthless and merciless. Al Sah-him did not have frivolous feelings of love in his empty chest.
Al Sah-him could hear the click of Felicity's heels as she ascended the stairs to her door, turning for only a moment to give Diggle, who had followed her to the curb, his arms folded tightly across his chest, another wave of her hand.
"Digg, I'll be okay." Felicity assured, digging around in her purse for keys for a moment before producing them with a great jingle of the blue phone booth key chain which Oliver had never understood the reference of. "Trust me. He's many things – deadbeat, low-life, great flee-er of responsibility," her hands flourished about, her keys making a racket as she did so, "but he wouldn't hurt me." Felicity replied to a question that Al Sah-him had not heard.
Diggle stood still for another moment or two before his phone rang a muted tune in his inner breast pocket.
"I'll call you if I hear a bump in the night." Felicity turned away then, entering the house and offering up a little wave before she closed the door behind her. Diggle's phone rang another moment before he answered, rounding the car and getting back behind the wheel.
"Lyla. I'll be home, don't put Sara to bed yet," Diggle murmured into the mouthpiece. The door of the vehicle shut with finality and Al Sah-him could see the house light up beyond the door.
"Al Sah-him." The voice did not startle him, he had heard his approach, quiet though it was across the gravel roof. Sarab was well suited to his League name with most others, but never with Al Sah-him, not even when they had been Maseo Yamashiro and Oliver Queen.
"Sarab."
"We have confirmation – the target was seen entering through the back door."
"He was never supposed to get this close," Al Sah-him growled, standing then as he watched the light in the living room illuminate across the street.
Felicity loved the feeling of the cold hardwood beneath her feet – it felt like home – she walked slowly this way, each foot absorbing the cold before she moved forward. She thumbed each button of her long jacket open and shirked it off of her shoulders, laying it across the back of the couch. She'd taken a few steps toward the bathroom, her fingers already searching for the zipper on the back of her dress when she heard the clatter.
She froze for a moment, stilled like a stray cat caught by the beam of a flashlight before she turned on the heels of her feet toward the couch and saw the picture frame on the floor, face down, its stand stuck up in the air like the leg of a dead bug. Felicity was across the room in a flash, her knees on the cool floor, scooping the frame up like a fallen child.
John Diggle was a sentimental guy – of course no one would have guessed and those who did were never too brave to accuse him of it. When they'd left Oliver in Nanda Parbat, Felicity ghosted around about life. She went to work the next day for Ray, though there was a small bit of awkwardness which neither of them was admittedly great at handling. Felicity went on this way for the better part of a month, she spoke little, left her house even less and saw the world in shades of Oliver Queen. Diggle and Laurel had imposed a sort of intervention – they told her it was alright to be upset but that Oliver would have wanted her to be happy and then Digg had given her this frame filled with a memory of a happier time. Felicity put on a brave face, agreed to have a pity party with ice cream, but she quietly refused to talk about Oliver like he was dead. Never in the past tense which the others had adopted. Oliver was; Oliver had been...
It had always seemed like it was harder when they thought Oliver was dead, the idea of his death final and absolute, but this was worse Felicity had come to realize – he was choosing to stay in Nanda Parbat, he was choosing to stay away, to leave them – to leave her.
Felicity turned the frame over in her hands, her eyes finding the crack that spread in a spider web pattern from the top right corner to the middle of the frame. She smiled then, her eyes wandering over to Oliver, his smile. The photo had been taken at Diggle and Lyla's wedding – it already seemed like it was years ago, it didn't seem like such a happy event could have happened so close to the moment that tore him from their lives. If Felicity could have done it all over again she would have told him that she loved him, twice for every time that he had told her and then every moment of every other day that they were together after.
She could feel the tears coming, the sting in the bridge of her nose and the blur at the bottom of her vision as she touched his face in the picture. She remembered that night in Nanda Parbat often: the roughness of his facial hair against her face, against her skin, the way he never took his eyes off of her. She remembered the feeling of his scarred skin beneath her touch and she loved them as marks in passages of events, of every moment that made the version of Oliver Queen that lay beneath her. She remembered the feeling of his weight on top of her, always present but always careful with her as if she might break. He touched her scar, the one on her shoulder, the one she was proud of. He had kissed it and lingered there for a moment as if he accepted it as part of her journey, the path that led her to be the Felicity Smoak that shared his bed, the one that had stolen his heart and held it fast.
Felicity felt the sharp bite of the broken glass and rouge smeared the glass as her finger reached Oliver's far cheek. A sniffle and the repressing sound of swallowing tears came from her throat as Felicity pushed herself to her feet and brought the frame over to the kitchen sink. Felicity wiped the blood from the frame first with a damp cloth she'd left hanging over the faucet in the morning and almost as a second thought stuck her finger in her mouth once she was sure there was no glass there.
"He killed the sentry in the alleyway and on the rooftop." Sarab was calm, his nerve was steady. Al Sah-him supposed this was why Ra's had sent him on this task. "He knew we were waiting."
Al Sah-him stood in the shadow just outside the reach of the light coming from the window. He watched Felicity as she turned her back to him, cleaning the frame at the sink and sticking her finger in her mouth. Oliver Queen was still within him, he knew it when he watched her, could feel it when now that he saw her, all he wanted to do was keep watching – dedicating every little way she moved to memory. The pull of her was like gravity, all he could do was to obey.
"Al Sah-him," Sarab's voice roused him from his state. "We must act."
Al Sah-him had to be stronger than Oliver Queen. In this moment most of all. Al Sah-him turned to Sarab and a nod pulled his chin down once, sharply and Sarab disappeared into the shadows with a nod in reply.
Felicity carried the frame with her to the back bedroom, she would have to get the glass replaced, but for now she'd set it down on her night stand. Moving toward the light in the corner of the room, Felicity tugged on the chain and her room illuminated. It took her a moment for her eyes to adjust and when they did, as she turned, her eyes fell on the occupied high back chair in the corner of the room near the closet she could barely keep closed anymore.
"Liss." There was a smug look about his weathered face and his age showed when he smiled the smile that turned up the corners of his mouth. Donna had always told Felicity that she'd taken two things from Damien Dahrk's gene pool – his brains and his smile. It always rotted Felicity that her mother reminded the youngest Smoak that she had the same smile as the man that had left them high and dry. It stung more that her mother always seemed whimsical when she said it, touching Felicity's face and smiling like she missed the man who had thrown them to the curb for whatever reason. He sat in the chair for a moment then as Felicity remained silent and still, his leg crossed over the other casually as if he'd been expected.
Damien Darhk had the look of a professional card reader. He looked young, almost baby faced even though he pushed fifty-three, but there was a hardness to his eyes, a pull at the corners of his lips and the scar that disrupted the flow of his left eyebrow, the one that Felicity's mother had told Felicity about whenever she reminisced about him. The gallant young guy at the bar who had defended her when she was being accosted by drunks. Damien Darhk, the hero. Though his blond hair had faded to lighter golden mixed with white.
"Get out." Felicity was stern, her mouth fixed in a straight, terse line. When he didn't move she shot her arm out, finger pointed to where she knew the door was. She didn't take her eyes off of him.
Dahrk stood then, the smile fading but his eyes, dancing and taking her in. "Is that any way to talk to dear old dad?" He sauntered over to her, arms opened wide as if he meant to hug her.
Felicity remembered the last time she had seen her father. She had been sixteen, three days after her birthday. He'd shown up in front of their small bungalow in Nevada while Donna slept off a late shift at The Cannery and Felicity sat on the front stoop with a laptop balanced on her knees. She hardly recognized him; it was the way of things when your dad showed up every decade or so and then disappeared again.
"Liss." He'd smiled that same smile, selling the snake oil as he pulled the tinted aviators off his face and opened his arms like he'd meant to hug her – not unlike now. She'd allowed him to hug her then, back when she still had a quiet wish to have a dad who showed up and was part of her life. It was the start of the phase when she dyed her hair dark and wore a lot of dark makeup that she didn't know what to do with – it set her apart from her mother, it made her feel a little bit more independent. "Is Donna home?" He managed, sneaking a look behind Felicity at the screen door that didn't close and rattled if the wind blew too hard. "No." Felicity lied, folding up the laptop and tucking it under her arm, fussing with a dark skirt that was much too short for her.
"What's this?" He asked her, tapping the hard shell of the laptop.
"I built it." Felicity remembered working on it at night after she told Donna she was going to sleep. She waited for the sound of the cab pulling away, taking her away to her night shift, waited the customary seven minutes during which Donna would return if she'd forgotten something and then put nose to hard drive. She had to smash a couple of clocks and dismantle a few of the electronics at home and in the neighbour's garage, but she made it and it worked. She was proud of it like her classmates were proud of getting their drivers licenses.
"Not bad, Kiddo." He slipped it out from under her arm and appraised it from every angle, pointing out parts and the mishmash of pieces like he'd watched her build it. "How 'bout I show you some of my tech?" Felicity knew they were one and the same that day when she noticed the way his eyes lit up when they talked about gadgets. It was a language they had, a high tech mumbo jumbo, jargon that was just theirs and theirs alone it seemed. He took her to a few stores, shopped around with her for a bit, bought her a new tools, a new router and one of those Macs that kids only hoped for. She shouldn't have been surprised that while she thought they were bonding, he was using her as a ping on a system, a tip-off to throw the scent off his trail. They'd stopped at a gas station a few blocks from the bungalow and he gave her his credit card, told her to grab a few snacks and they'd go to that drive in off of Wilmington. By the time she had swiped the card and shoved through the front door, the Chevy Impala and her father were gone. Felicity waited for a half hour before she started home. The cops were waiting for her. Stolen credit card, something about a felon and if she had any information on his whereabouts. With a straight face, she had looked the officer in the eye and lied.
She promised herself she wouldn't let it happen again.
The Damien Darhk that stood before her now smiled in that same way. He looked at her as if she was his lighthouse in the storm. "Felicity," He sighed when she didn't melt, her expression remaining stern. "I just need you to help me out here."
Felicity steered him toward the front door, through the living room and he shook her off just short of the end of the couch. "Felicity, you don't understand."
Felicity was having none of it, she didn't bother to ask how he had found her. "I just need an in, Ray Palmer or even your buddy Oliver Queen. They trust you, right?"
The name was like a punch in the gut. It took her back, stole the comment from her lips. He wouldn't know. Not many people knew, they assumed Oliver Queen was laying low, waiting for the rumours to die down. Felicity scrambled for verbal footing - this wasn't like her to be lost for words.
A crash from the back bedroom shook her from her state and she turned in time to watch the dark figure break through the window in her bedroom, knocking over the lamp and the nightstand in a shower of glass, the others came quickly after, through the large living room window and another through the kitchen window. "Felicity, this way." Darkh darted for the door, wrenching open the port quickly and shutting it again sharply as if he meant to keep a wild animal at bay. "Not this way," he amended with a grimace, his back pressed against the door, his words punctuated by several thudding sounds. Felicity might not have known the sound before she'd met Oliver and edged in on his secret – she knew the sound now as a familiar one. Arrows embedding themselves into her front door.
"Who did you con this time?" Felicity snatched the empty mug off the side table in the living room and lobbed it at the hooded figure. In a swift move the archer sidestepped the projectile and drew an arrow from the quiver and drew the dark bow, taking aim.
The League. This time her father was too deep. Loan sharks and ditching your family seemed like some first circle crap, but the League was ninth circle of hell territory. Felicity wouldn't forget the League for as long as she lived – it had stolen possibilities from her, a future and hope. It had stolen a piece of her that she could never forgive them for.
"Sarab." The voice that rang out above the din and the sound of invasion was stern and the dark figures immediately froze, weapons at the ready, bows drawn and aimed.
Felicity could count thirteen in her small living space, glass and devastation crunched below their dark boots. If she could count thirteen, there were more she couldn't see.
They parted then, folding back around the space he vacated as he passed. The dark figure stopped a few paces in front of Felicity, her father quiet behind her.
It took her a moment, but Felicity knew it was him, even though the hood and the mask concealed all but his eyes. Oliver Queen; his eyes were distinct, but the glimmer in them was gone, the hope and life and soul behind them was dark and fathomless. Even the sound of his voice was changed, rough and coarse.
"Oliver?" She was breathless as though she'd run a mile and yet she couldn't move. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest, beating against get ribs as if it were a bird trying to break free from its cage.
He remained still, his eyes on her for no more than a moment before they skipped over her and landed behind her, on her father. "Damien Darhk," he reached up to remove the piece that covered the bottom half of his face, "you stand accused of treachery against the Demon's Head. As Heir to the Demon, you will see justice at His hand or by mine."
"You won't take him." Felicity spoke with force now as she stepped forward and the bows followed her movements, ready to loose arrows should she present herself as a threat. "I won't let you take him." She knew she wasn't talking about her father.
"Oliver, please." Felicity froze, so close to him she could reach out and touch the spot on his chest where she knew the Bratva tattoo was, so close she could see the smooth line of his jaw. She set her jaw when she felt the stinging feeling behind her eyes – she wouldn't cry in front of him, but she could feel the knife twist in her chest. He didn't look at her.
"Felicity." The sound of her full name sounded strange coming from her father. The screaming screech that made her weak in the knees and knocked out the lights quickly that came shortly after shouldn't have surprised her. Her father had always been good at getting out of sticky situations. She clapped her hands over her ears, squeezing her eyes shut, sinking low and landing hard on her knees, broken bits of glass nipping into her skin.
She felt a strong grip on her upper arm that pulled her to her feet and out the broken living room window, out into the night, the ringing still in her ears.