AN: A bit of back story on this little mess before we get started . . . .This story started as more of a speculation post on my tumblr page. Before 2x13 aired, many Oliciters were hoping we would get our first glimpse of Felicity's apartment. We've seen where nearly every other major character of this show lives—Diggle, Oliver, Lance, Laurel, hell even where Malcolm Merlyn lived. We've seen where Carly lives, McKenna, Helena . . . pretty much everyone but Felicity. My brain got away from itself speculating if there was a reason that TPTB have kept us from seeing where Felicity lives, and it ended up being a sort of "what if" post written in the future tense. That was several days ago, and my brain hasn't been able to let this go. The original sort-of-drabble can be found on my tumblr page.
A word of caution: I believe Felicity will forgive Oliver almost anything, any of you who have read my work know that that's how I am (even if it drives you nuts.) I'm a happily ever after girl, even though I love the angst. This is your warning, this story (which will be 2-3 chapters) probably won't be a HEA. At least not any time soon, because I don't have the time to devote to dealing with it. These planned chapters will be angst filled, and painful, and will not end with a happy kiss and all is forgiven. So consider yourself forwarned. Now, enjoy, I guess? Mostly, I'm sorry that this wouldn't leave me alone.
Part 1-The Beginning of the End
It had been Sara that had finally called him on it. After he had come within inches of losing her, and he was still shaking from the fear, Sara looked at him with surprised, knowing eyes.
"You're in love with her," she had said. It hadn't been a question—she had spoken it with absolute certainty.
He could have denied it. He could have argued. This was Sara, after all—they still occasionally fell back into their not-quite-defined cycle of screwing-for-the-sake-of-screwing, because it was familiar and they didn't have to hide anything from each other. But considering he had thought Felicity was going to die only an hour before, he couldn't bring himself to form an argument.
Somehow, he ended up finally asking Felicity out to dinner. Which was how he ended up at her apartment door. He had never been here, and he considered that odd, since she had been his partner in crime (literally) for well over a year. When she opened the door, she waved him in, rushing off to the kitchen as soon as he was through the door.
"Come in, I'm running late. The neighbor needed help with her computer—she got some kind of virus. And it was the kind of virus that took a good fifteen minutes to get rid of, not the easy five minute kind." He smiled at that. "So that made me late. And I'm not even sure where we're going. Or why you feel to take me to dinner, for that matter, because we eat dinner together almost every evening."
He chuckled, roaming around her living room as she rambled. "To go boxes don't count," he teased. She went on, talking more about the neighbor, while he looked at the framed pictures that rested on the end tables that bracketed the single bright blue sofa in her living room. He saw her on what must have been her graduation day from MIT, standing proudly with her diploma. He would have expected to see someone standing beside her, but she stood alone. Her mother was in the second picture though. She was slightly shorter than Felicity, and a bit softer in her features. She had the same blue eyes and flowing blond hair, but the similarities ended there. Standing side by side with her daughter, who looked to be eleven or so at the time, Felicity's mother looked weary and tired. She lacked the light that Felicity seemed to exude on a daily basis.
"So where are we going, anyway?" Felicity asked as he crossed to the other side of the sofa to look at the other pictures.
"Oh, I don't know. Somewhere without boxes. Maybe . . ." And then he forgot what he was saying as he stared at the next picture. He reached down and picked it up, thinking that his mind must be playing tricks on him. Maybe since Slade came back from the dead and had nearly taken Felicity from him, his mind thought it would be a great idea to impose images of other people he had killed over Felicity's family pictures. He blinked and brought the picture closer.
Impossible. He couldn't be seeing what he is seeing.
Felicity walked back into the room then, putting her coat on. "Okay ready . . ." Her voice trailed off as she took in his face. "Oliver, what is it?" He felt a little numb, so he had no idea what his face must have looked like, but it couldn't have been good. He couldn't manage to make his mouth form a single word, so he just held the photo out for her to see.
"Oh," she said softly. She blinked as her eyes became suddenly red. "That's um, the only picture I have of all three of us. I think I was, oh, maybe three at the time? He left a couple of months after that. I can't bring myself to put it away—if it weren't for that picture, I think I would have forgotten what he looked like a long time ago."
Oliver swallowed, turning the picture back toward him again. He felt like he should say something—maybe comment on how much she looked like herself, all gangly limbs and think glasses and long, blond pigtails. But he can't manage to form the words. He can barely tear his gaze away from the face of the man holding the sweet little girl who would turn into the woman before him. Because he knew that face. He knew the man holding the little girl. Oliver knew his name, and he knew how he died, because he had killed him with his own two hands.
The man in the picture is Anthony Ivo. Not only has he killed his sister's father, he has apparently also killed Felicity's.
He looked back up at Felicity, and saw uncertainty in her eyes. "Hey, are you okay?" She stepped forward and reached for his wrist. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
He put the picture down and swallowed. His heart dropped down to his toes as he felt her gentle touch on his skin. She slid her hand down his wrist and took his hand in her much smaller one. In a moment of clarity, he saw himself through her eyes—a struggling man, tampered down with demons but wanting to be a hero. Suddenly, eh was overcome by the need to escape. Because there was no way she could possibly see him that way if she knew that he had choked the life out of her father—a man that she clearly still missed and thought of often—with the hand that she was still holding. The thought of her no longer seeing him as she currently did was almost too much.
"Um, something came up," he said suddenly. The words burned as they came out, because he hadn't lied to Felicity in well over a year. He hadn't lied to her since she had joined their mission. Even the lies he had told her, back when he used to go down to her office at QC had been so terrible that she had seen right through them.
"Ohh, something Arrow-y?" She asks with a smile, and he could swear her eyes lit up at the idea.
He shook his head, resisting the urge to close his drop his gaze from hers. He didn't want to lie to her, but there's no way he can tell her the truth. There's also no way he can stay with her now, and take her to dinner, knowing what he knows. He won't be able to look her in the eye, knowing that he is keeping a huge and earth-shattering secret from her. A secret that will change how she sees him forever. "No. At home. I need to go."
Her smile fell, and her eyes squinted as she regarded him carefully. "Oh, ok."
Before the words were out of her mouth, he already had his hand on the handle of her front door. Because he could not get out of there fast enough. He had killed her father.
Her hand touches his shoulder as he pulled the door open to leave. "Oliver, you never answered me. Are you okay?"
Not even remotely. He closed his eyes, realizing that she might never want to touch him again if she knows the truth. He knew that Felicity gave forgiveness easily—maybe easier than she should, especially to him. But he suspected that she might never forgive him for this.
Opening his eyes, he met hers. He gave her his fake smile, the one that belonged to Ollie Queen, the spoiled playboy. "Yeah," he lied. "I just need to take care of this." He saw the confusion in her eyes as she tried to comprehend what had just happened as he turned to go. He had to get out of there before she saw right through him to the black, broken interior.
He could feel her watch him go, and he knew that she knew he has just lied to her. To her. The one person he felt like he never had to lie to. The one person that he could always be himself with.
He killed her father. Now he knows the truth. And he is certain that she would never forgive him if she knew the truth. She would never see him in the same way again. She wouldn't see her partner, or her friend, or a hero. She would only see the man who killed her father. And he couldn't bear the thought of her looking at him like that.
The truth is a funny thing, though. It never stays hidden for long.
