Crisis On Earth-X; Episode 4
Felicity
"Step away from her," says a low and angry voice.
Felicity automatically moves in front of Kara. The irony of shielding Supergirl with her own frail body is not lost on her, and she feels a hysterical giggle bubbling up from her stomach. It quickly dies in her throat, however, as she stares into the eyes of the stranger.
The sheer other-worldliness of him makes her head spin. Yes, he's a stranger, but his eyes are the same ones she has memorized.
They're still starbursts the color of sky, rimmed with dark gray-blue. It's a gaze she knows so thoroughly when they're communicating emotions like fondness, exasperation, wonder, and a myriad of other things that pass between people in love; their current calculating expression, however, makes her heart pound like she's being hunted.
They are pure steel now. Cold, unforgiving metal. Subtly touched at the corners with worry in a way she recognizes. Worry for his alien Nazi wife.
Her tongue seems to loosen with righteous fury at the thought.
"There's no way," she says, in what she hopes is a calm, commanding voice, though it sounds more like a whisper to her own ears.
She sees him swallow involuntarily, and banking on the fact that he hadn't just shot her point-blank as he had Ray, she takes a breath and a chance.
"My grandparents didn't survive the Holocaust so the world could be ruled by Nazis," she intones, surprising even herself as she walks toward him. "So if you want Kara, you gotta go through me."
He just watches her, brow slightly furrowed.
"And even if you do, you're not gonna win. 'Cause we will not back down. We will keep fighting."
One corner of his mouth begins to lift.
"So get the hell off our earth while you still can."
The smirk on his face is familiar and terrifying.
"Hmm," he says, still amused. "As final words go…those weren't bad."
And then the mouth sets. The body moves forward in an archer's stance – something she's watched him do a million times before, but never toward her. The bow is loaded and drawn, and Felicity irrationally and internally thanks God for the inadvertent lessons of Not-Laurel as she stares down the edge of a black arrowhead.
This is not Oliver.
"Lower your weapon."
That's Oliver.
She wants to turn and look at him, but she can't move. She feels like she's already physically pinned by the projectile.
The Nazi with Oliver's face has the shot anchored to his mouth, steadfast. He only turns his head when the real Oliver continues his threat.
"Or I'll kill her."
The following silence is ringing. Felicity wrenches her eyes off of the arrow pointed at her chest and stares at the Nazi. The Nazi stares back and something in his face makes her feel dizzy.
Because yes, this is not Oliver.
But the sudden twitch of doubt in his scowl? That is Oliver.
"Now, her neck doesn't seem invulnerable, so I will say it again," growls her Oliver, impatient with himself. "Lower. Your weapon."
"Don't listen to him; just shoot her," commands Overgirl.
"No! No," Oliver cuts her off, and she can hear a tinge of desperation creep into his Arrow voice. It scares her and she still can't manage to look at him.
So she watches as Nazi Oliver's scowl deepens; his mouth more firmly set. But the tremor in his arm and the indecision in his eyes tell her all she needs to know as her Oliver offers the possibility of a STAR Labs cure.
He's listening. Considering.
"He's lying. Do it for the Fatherland – just KILL HER."
It's a small detail, but it's one in which Felicity sees the truth:
His wife doesn't know him.
Or, she does, but she doesn't want to acknowledge the truth about him.
Because Oliver – any Oliver (in any world, she's willing to bet, since this one has got to be the worst of them all) – is not truly a soldier at heart. He would never choose a country or a cause over a person he loves.
This Nazi archer loves his wife more than she loves him. Her order should not have been "kill her," but "save me."
Only then would have Felicity been really and truly afraid.
Oliver
There's a blinding flash of red and his arms are suddenly empty.
"I thought that jerk was supposed to be dead!" complains Ray, his tone offhand and completely unlike the situation, as is his way.
Oliver is so relieved that he drops the arrow to the ground, forgetting to put it back in his quiver. He starts toward Felicity as she flies at him, and he catches her halfway.
"Hi," she breathes out shakily, almost collapsing against him.
He's holding her so tightly that he thinks her feet might be off the ground. Her arms around his neck are shaking and he tells himself over and over again that she's safe, she's safe, she isn't running away from a concentration camp with a gun he knows she can't shoot, bone thin and filthy and beaten –
"I am so sorry," she cries, holding his face in her hands.
"It's okay. It's okay," he tells them both. "You're safe, you're safe; it's fine."
"No, I shouldn't have said what I said – what if it was the last thing we ever said to each other?"
"It doesn't matter. Nothing matters except that I love you. Okay? I don't need anything else. I don't need to get married. I just – I just want to be with you."
She sighs a nearly inaudible 'okay' against his mouth. His own reply barely gets past his lips before he's pressing them against her own, not caring that anyone is watching, not caring about anything much, really, because Felicity is gloriously and miraculously alive, currently pulling the edges of his hood toward herself with little regard to his balance or the danger they're still in. He knows he ought to pull away; ought to re-scan the perimeter; ought to be strategizing or fighting or…
His self-deprecating thoughts cease momentarily when she breaks off the kiss and presses her cheek to his chest, head fitting under his chin, arms around his torso. He feels her hands slip under his quiver and her fingers twist into the material of his jacket.
"Thanks for not being a Nazi," she whispers, and he knows she's trying to break the tension; trying to make him smile; letting him know that she still trusts him; that she'll be alright.
But her doppelganger swims before his eyes and he finds he can't say anything at all.
He just holds her, his gloved hands threaded in her blonde hair, and begs the God of Earth-X Felicity's ancestors for mercy.