Memories of the Night, Nightmares of the Day
A/N: Hey, I'm back again with another Arrow one-shot. I intend for this fic to be a one-shot as I'm otherwise occupied (New Year preparations and all..) Anyway, this is my late Christmas present for all of you, and also an early New Year beginning… hahah. Hope you enjoy this small piece of work. Thanks to my beta Riptide2, love working with you! :D
The Nameless Man…
She felt as though her whole world, her whole existence had come crashing down. Her body shook as she woke from another nightmare. There it was again, the crimson coloured sword, the weapon that was bathed in his blood. The league had bought it as proof that only one lived, while the other had faced an honourable death.
Sweat dripped down her forehead and tiny droplets moistened her grey t-shirt.
His t-shirt.
She clenched her fists into balls, closed her eyes and let fresh hot tears run down her face.
"You said you'd come back. Dammit Oliver, you said you'd come back. You should have come back. For Thea, Oliver..."
She rose from the bed, and stared at the scene in front of her, a dull and un-beckoning one. Clangs of metal woke her as she walked towards her chair in the cave. The salmon ladder was occupied, which meant Roy was letting off some steam. She guided her half-awake self to the shelf where they kept the tea bags.
…
Holding the mug wasn't difficult. Pouring hot water into it was challenging. Her hands shook every time she recalled her nightmare turned reality. She wanted to scream and punch everything in her way, everyone. They tried to console her, but she knew that they too were equally suffering. Equally scarred and equally traumatised by the events that unfolded 48 hours after he left them forever.
The mug clattered to the ground with a loud enough clatter to startle Felicity out of her daze. She hadn't realised that she'd been crying again.
"Dammit, I can't be like this. Not… Not now." She wipes off the tears and the wasted tea and proceeds to her computers.
…
It is normal for her now, the silence in contrast to Roy working out. Everything seems to have dimmed around her. Her senses of her surroundings, her consciousness, her heart, her soul. Suddenly she's going back to the time Nyssa presented the sword.
...Who When Named…
"It was an honourable death he received by the Demon's head himself. Nevertheless, a death is a death, one waits all his life to face it, yet has no time to savour it, but one does remember it's after effects…"
Nyssa was a woman of very few words and even fewer emotions. An admirable and strong woman, yet right now, Felicity couldn't stand in front of her and the blade which gleamed crimson, the light of the foundry shining over it. As Nyssa moved the blade forward for John to accept it, she noticed scrapes of dry blood falling onto the fern. Theirs.
She couldn't stand there. She needed to get out. Her body was numb. Echoes of those three words… His words clouded her mind.
"I love you."
The touch of his lips on hers in the hospital… That one brief caress of his lips on her forehead… All those were being sucked out, becoming null and void. The chill of the foundry seemed to have had an effect on her demeanour as she found herself on her knees beside Roy, hugging herself, crying out tears of agony, pain, and most of all love.
"You're lying…" She remembered accusing Nyssa of a sin she didn't commit. She remembered asking for proof, of Oliver's body. The nameless man, who when named…
(Now that she'd said his name…)
Made Everything Real…Even Death
"No! No, no… I refuse to believe that Oliver's gone. He can't be dead. He promised! He promised he'd return." She'd screamed at the top of her lungs. "He swore to me he'd protect her, protect Thea!"
Nyssa had left. Left them in shambles, pieces unwilling to be picked up. Scattered glasses of an incomplete mirror. Souls with no identity.
"HE LOVED ME!" She'd said it. That one secret she'd been holding for days. Their secret, which everyone wished to see come true someday. She wept in John's arms, unable to stay strong anymore, for those who cry the most have stayed strong for too long.
"You promised me…," she'd kept whispering.
Her consciousness had to give away at some point. Her soul couldn't have taken anymore.
….
Staring at the screen for an hour without any activity would seem odd, but not for the remaining team members.
Two months since that incident, she's spoken little. Only a chosen few (Thea excluded) know about Oliver Queen's death. Even Barry and gang weren't informed. Roy has been training harder than before, driven to do his master proud. No one sees it more than Felicity, but John and Laurel too let out their tears once in a while, when all alone. Laurel, in ways unimaginable to Felicity, had let her anger consume her, but it also drove her to find Sara's real killer. She never believed Oliver would do such a thing.
And her?
She kept going on. But the empty void left by the man who loved her, shattered her being every day. Shattered her soul to a million pieces, for not being able to reciprocate her feelings to the only person she had truly grown to love.
She thought, "You said you'd come back! You said you'd come back because you loved me… Then why haven't you? I love you…" This she whispered into the cold February air as she awaited judgement for loving a man who'd sinned.
…
Oliver felt a warm sensation envelop him. As he opened his eyes, he realised he was in a hot spring. It was more like a gigantic hot spring within the mountains.
"What am I doing here?"
"Welcome back to the world of the living. I thought that for a second Ra's had you. You turned out to be quite the survivor after all didn't you?"
Two men were standing outside the spring waiting for Oliver to respond. Oliver looked at them, confused and responded, "Do I know you people?"
Maseo and Malcolm Merlyn gave each other worried looks. The Arrow was needed, and Oliver Queen had just forgotten the men standing before him.
"Let me handle this Merlyn." The other man stepped forward, gave the Japanese guy a warning, making him step aside, "No let me."
"Tell me your name." The guy named Merlyn asked in an almost calm tone. But somehow Oliver detected a sense of panic and worry in the other guy's face.
"My name is… Oliver Queen."
A/N: HEY ALL! I wrote this because come on, who wouldn't write after that mind blowing, chest-stabbing (literally) mid-season finale! Oh my gosh, they actually went through with what I was speculating for a while now! I feel proud. Hehehe. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this and once again I'd love to thank my BETA for being so kind to go through my tiresome 'sad-phase' writing. Please leave a message, I love reviews. They mean a lot to me…:D Thanks once again. :D