Felicity really should have seen this coming. Really, what kind of psychic gets caught because of a bank robbery? To be fair, it had been her fault in the first place. She had been the one to expose her secret, she had chosen to do so, but it was still an embarrassing situation. And she wasn't really caught to be honest. And it wasn't really because of the bank robbery, although that played a massive part it it. The visions of the bank robbery were what caused to to out herself in the first place. Curse her and her heroine complex.
The visions had started, according to her mother, when she had been four. Or at least, that's when Felicity's parents had first found out about the visions. For all her mom knew, Felicity could have been having images of the future flashing through her head since she had been born. Her mom had at first been astonished by it, absolutely thrilled her daughter was just that much more special than the rest of the world, but then reality dawned, and Donna Smoak had realised that if anybody found out about Felicity's powers, they would have her taken away and locked up to be experimented on, or worse, used as some kind of tool or weapon by the government.
The rules had been simple.
1. Don't exploit the gift, and yes, that means no looking into the future for the Lottery numbers.
2. Don't change the future just because you don't like what you see.
2. Never tell anybody. Ever.
Felicity broke all three of those rules on Wednesday 26th November 2013. Well, technically, she broke all three of the rules over a period of the six days or so after that date. And who could really blame her. It wasn't like she was going to let the man she had fallen in love with die right before her eyes because she was too much of a coward to actually use her psychic abilities to make a difference for once.
The visions concerning the bank robbery began like her visions usually did - unexpectedly. Usually her visions came to her in brief flashes that lasted barely ten seconds or so, just enough that she could get a good glimpse at what was going to happen, maybe an audio snippet or two; normally they interrupted random daydreams, or cut into her sleep, jerking her awake in cold sweat in the middle of the night, and the weirdest thing was that instead of that happening with these visions, she received her first one as she admired Oliver go up and down the salmon ladder, her vision suddenly blacking out for a moment before it started up like a movie in her head.
It wasn't clear. There was blood, there was pain. There was a scream of pain, a flash of green leather soaked in crimson, and then the vision ended, and she was left staring blankly at the back wall of the Foundry, breathing kicked up and her heart beating a mile a minute in her chest.
Did I just have a vision of the future of Oliver… dying?
"Felicity," Oliver's voice cut into her horrified thoughts, and she glanced up, startled, to find him standing in front of her, gazing down at her worriedly, eyebrows furrowed and the rest of his body just… glistening gloriously with sweat. Her jaw clicked shut so she could make sure she didn't start spontaneously drooling. "Are you okay?" he asked gently. "You spaced out there for a moment. I called your name three times and you didn't answer."
"I was enjoying the view," she answered without thinking, desperately trying to come up with an excuse and blurting out the first one that popped into her head. Then, realising what she said, she blushed scarlet, sighing in exasperation and putting her head in her hands. "Oh my god, I need to learn when to just shut up sometimes…"
But Oliver was grinning. "Glad you're taking advantage of when I'm shirtless," he quipped, and that was how Felicity knew he was having a good day, because he almost never made quips or humorous comments like that; he only ever joked when he was in a good mood, and that wasn't often, so when he spoke, she grinned back.
"I'm not gonna respond to that," she finally said.
He seemed to take pity on her, tilting his head sideways. "Hey, why don't you go pick up some Big Belly Burger? Dig's arriving around eight and we can take a night off, maybe watch a film or something."
"Good idea!" she agreed quickly, jumping up and snatching her bag and coat from her chair, nodding frantically, taking the opportunity given to get out of the Foundry, away from Oliver - who I just saw die, oh god, oh god - to clear her heavy head.
They ended up eating burgers and icecream along with milkshakes while watching the seasons of Lost that Oliver had missed while on the island, while also introducing him to Breaking Bad and Sherlock. Felicity hooked up one of their wall screens she had installed to a DVD player and they made a blanket fort and nest on the training mats. He seemed to enjoy the evening, pressing up beside her and making sure she was warm by wrapping a blanket and at once point his huge arms around her, while Diggle made lewd commentary. Throughout the whole evening, for hours, Felicity just stared at Oliver, watching him, feeling tears spring into her eyes on more than one occasion as she watched him grin, chuckle, tease, settle, glare, roll his eyes and genuinely laugh while interacting with both her and Diggle, acting like he was at home, surrounded by his family.
When she got home, feeling sick to her stomach, she did the only thing she could think of: pick up her cell phone and call her mother. "Let's say, hypothetically, I had a vision about this guy I think I'm in love with bleeding out and dying," Felicity said, trying to sound calm. "What do you think I should do?"
Her mother rambled on about how it was too dangerous to interrupt the timeline, about how now she had seen the future it was set in stone, about how she shouldn't blame herself and prepare herself for the inevitable, but Felicity wasn't listening. Because saying those words - the guy I think I'm in love with - bleeding out and dying - struck home, and suddenly, she didn't think she had ever felt so terrified.
She had to save Oliver. Somehow. Throw the rules into the gutter. She just had to save Oliver.
"This is a bad idea," she told herself in the mirror, pausing before she muttered, "But since when have you ever let bad ideas ever stop you?" She shook her head. "Okay, okay. Let's keep a level head. You don't know how exactly this bleeding out and dying thing is going to happen. You don't even know when it's going to happen. You can't even think about changing those events yet, not when you don't have enough information to run on. Until those details come through, you stay calm, stay logical, and act normal." She laughed nervously. "I can act normal."
…..
She collapsed in the Foundry the next day.
On the day of November 26th. The day she began breaking the rules.
Losing her balance and tripping as another vision flashed into her mind, cutting off her normal vision, she heard Oliver cry out her name in alarm and hands cupping her face, but she was too focused on her new psychic vision that was plaguing her to care at that moment, though usually she would probably feel embarrassed while thrilled at having Oliver fawning over her.
Felicity concentrated this time, needing to learn as much as possible from the vision so she could somehow put a stop to what was going to happen in it. This time, it was a lot more detailed. Though it was blurry, she could see the room, and it looked like some sort of bank, with lot of civilians cowering, obviously hostages, men with guns towering over Oliver - or she assumed it was Oliver, it might have been Dig wearing the suit, but it was more likely Oliver - who was sprawled on the ground in a pool of his own blood, gasping for breath. Whenever she had visions, she was often watching from third perspective, and this time, she was situated in the middle, between the robbers and Oliver on the floor, and she felt like being sick as she stood over his crumpled, damaged body, watching him die.
She startled back into reality with a gasp, and she didn't know she was crying until Oliver's calloused fingers gently brushed against her cheeks to wipe them away; she was leaning against the cold wall, with Oliver knelt down in front of her worriedly, gripping her hands tightly. Diggle was hovering behind him, also appearing very concerned.
"Hey," Oliver said softly. "No, don't get up -" He pushed her back down to the floor carefully when she tried to stand. He turned back to Diggle. "Could you go grab the first aid kit? She bumped her head when she fell." When the archer turned back to her, he asked seriously, "Have you been sleeping?"
"Oliver -"
"Have you been sleeping?" he insisted.
"Yes!" she shouted, fury bubbling up inside of her. She wasn't the one not sleeping, he was. He didn't have any right to try and lecture her about her sleeping habits. "I've been sleeping, alright? It's not sleep that's the problem."
"Hey. Hey." He gently took hold of her shoulder, turning her towards him and gazing at her softly when she tried to turn away, sobs rising in her chest because the only thing she could think of when looking at him was Oliver dying and her unable to stop it. "What's the problem then?"
She couldn't contain it any longer. The fear, the horror at seeing him dying before her eyes, the fact that it was going to happen sometime in the future… she couldn't let it happen. It was making her hands shake just thinking about it. She had to try and warn him, somehow. Screw the rules. "Okay. Okay, okay, okay," she murmured, rubbing at her eyes. "The - the problem…" She wrung her hands nervously. "This isn't going to easy to understand."
Oliver's lips quirked up. "Is anything in our lives anymore?" he replied, obviously trying to reassure her.
"No, you don't…" She inhaled shakingly, glancing away for a brief moment before turning back to him, trying to hold back her tears. This could go one of two ways. The first was that he could accept her, accept her abilities as real and he would believe her and take her warning to heart. The second was that he would reject her and send to her to a psych ward. "Please don't - don't interrupt, don't speak until I'm finished," she whispered. She switched her gaze towards Diggle, who was standing only a few feet away with the first aid kit in his hands. "Don't judge me until I've stopped talking."
"Felicity," Oliver reached out to squeeze her hands, looking worried. "Whatever you tell us could never make us push you away. I promise you that."
She turned to Diggle. "You're like my little sister, Felicity," he said truthfully. "If anybody's gonna follow you to hell and back, it's Oliver and I."
She inhaled sharply and deeply, taking a few more breaths to steady herself. This was it. The moment of truth. She could do this. She could admit her darkest, biggest secret to her two best friends. They had promised not to speak, not to judge, until she had explained everything. She trusted them. She trusted Diggle, she trusted Oliver. She needed to save Oliver.
"I'm a psychic," she confessed calmly, in a small voice.
Rule number 3 shattered to pieces.
"... A psychic?" Diggle repeated.
"Yeah," she swallowed. "I can… I can read people's minds and predict the future - see, see the future," she corrected immediately, grimacing. "I... the reading people's minds thing I never really was very good at so I stopped trying and I haven't tried to in… god, a decade, so I don't know if I even can anymore but… I get visions of the future. Every so often, I get -" She waved at her head. "I guess they're like flashes? Like a movie clip but not very defined or detailed, playing out in my head. Of the future. That's how I knew you were the vigilante," she motioned to Oliver. "Sometimes in my dreams or just during the day I'd get little flashes of you in the suit, sometimes with the hood up, sometimes down. It's how I knew the code to get into the Foundry the first time I came here without you guys telling me."
She couldn't look Oliver or Diggle in the eye. She just continued twiddling her fingers and thumbs, blinking down at them with tear-filled eyes, hoping that the tremor in her shoulders wasn't visible. "The problem… the problem as you put it is that recently for the last few days I've been receiving visions of…" She paused, swallowing heavily as she turned to the archer. "This is going to sound crazy, but I've been receiving visions of you shot and dying. Oliver, I can't let that happen, please, you have to believe me -" The tears spilled over as she grew even more desperate. "I'm sorry, I know you probably think I'm insane, but I'm telling the truth, I swear and I can't just sit back and let you die without knowing I could do something to stop it." She forced herself to stop talking, sniffing as she tried to gather herself, straightening her back. "I don't know what date or time it's going to happen, but I know it's going to happen in a bank, during a robbery. In the vision, there are about half a dozen men with machine guns and there are a lot of civilians being held hostage. You're there in the suit and you're - you're -"
"Hey, hey…" Oliver guided her over to her chair at her computer set-up, gently pushing her down before kneeling in front of her, tucking a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear tenderly while lifting her chin with his other hand, making sure their blue eyes connected. "I believe you."
Her eyes widened. "You believe me?"
"Yeah, I do," he said softly. "I've seen too much, too many things that can't be explained during those fives years away, not to believe you." A small smile broke out over his usually stoic face. "You being a psychic explains a lot, actually. Especially how you always seem to know what I'm talking about before I even do."
"You believe me." She was shocked. She hadn't ever told anybody before, but she had always imagined that if she did end up admitting her powers to somebody, they wouldn't believe her. But here Oliver was, accepting her, accepting her powers and actually believing her. "You believe me. You believe me."
"What, did you think that I wouldn't?" he replied, frowning.
She gave a quiet, slightly hysterical laugh. "You… you don't think I'm crazy?"
"You're a lot of things, Felicity Smoak," Diggle said, his eyes warm and kind like they always generally were as he strode over, opening up the first aid kit to get her an ice pack for where she hit her head. "Genius, remarkable, caring, modest, hard-working, brave and honest... But you're not crazy." He stroked her temple, where she winced when it throbbed, pressing the ice pack there carefully. "If you say you can see the future… then I believe you." He exchanged a look with Oliver. "We both do."
An indescribable emotion washed through her, lighting her up from head to toe; stunned by their compassion, their tenderness, she reached forwards and pulled both of them in for a hug, wrapping her arms around Diggle while resting her head on Oliver's shoulder. They embraced her back warmly, and she knew they were probably exchanging a silent conversation over her head, but she didn't care. They both believed her.
"Okay," she pulled away, wiping her eyes clean. "Let's get to work. I think that's both your hug quotas done for today, boys."
Diggle gave a soft laugh, while Oliver nodded in agreement but rolled his eyes. "So in this vision, you said I was shot," Oliver said. "How much blood was there? How was I breathing?"
"Why does that matter?" It made her nauseous just thinking about it.
"If we can work out where he was hit, we can figure out where he needs to wear Kevlar when the time comes," Diggle explained.
"Right! Good - good idea." She squinted in remembrance. "Er, there was a lot of blood. You were kind of… lying in a pool of it. So yeah, a lot of blood. Oh, and you weren't breathing properly, and by that I mean you were kind of struggling, like gasping, except silently, you know, because I don't really get audio in the visions. But yeah, definitely struggling to breath and a lot of blood."
Oliver turned to Diggle. "Lung?"
"Yeah, probably a pneumothorax and a major artery." Diggle confirmed. "You have a Kevlar vest in that trunk of yours next to the Russian vodka?" Oliver shrugged. "You said half a dozen or so men with machine guns and a load of civilians. How many civilians exactly?"
Her heart skipped a beat. "I, er... don't know. I was a little distracted by seeing my best friend bleeding out and dying on the floor in front of me to pay attention." She bit her lip. "Sorry, that was rude. No, I couldn't count the number of civilians. But visions like this one usually repeat themselves several times over, so I should have the same one again. Maybe tonight. I'll look for details next time, like a date or time on a phone or watch or something, get the name of the bank. Write it down"
Oliver's eyebrows furrowed and he rubbed his calloused thumb over the hand he was holding. "Don't push yourself, okay? There was a reason I asked you if you were having trouble sleeping. You look exhausted."
She shrugged. "Well, between my day job in the IT department, my night job here running tech and the visions that keep waking me up at night… yeah, I guess you could say I'm having trouble sleeping," she confessed, shrinking back into her chair.
"Why don't you take tonight off?" Diggle suggested.
"Yeah," Oliver agreed. "There's not going to be much action tonight anyway."
"But you're going after somebody on the list," she said, confused.
"Sure, but it's just breaking in and out of the guy's apartment, a little threatening," Oliver said, as if all of that was normal stuff. "Dig can stay and man the comms and you've taught him how to use your programs to hack into CCTV pretty well. We'll be fine. Go and get some rest."
"He's right, Felicity," Diggle nodded. He grabbed his coat. "Here, I can drive you if you want."
"No, it's fine," she reassured, smiling. "But are you two sure you can cope without me tonight?"
"Well, no, to be honest," Diggle said dryly. "It's gonna take me like three times the time it usually takes you to log into that program." When she blinked, wide-eyed and concerned, he chuckled. "Felicity, we'll be fine. We'll manage. You should go and have a long deserved sleep."
"Thanks." She grabbed her coat and cardigan, pulling both on before grabbing her bag, squeezing Oliver's bicep as she passed him where he was seated attaching arrow heads to newly made shafts. She made it half way up the stairs before she froze and raced back down, calling out loud, "Don't you dare go to stop any bank robberies without back up, without me here, you hear me, Oliver?"
"I hear you," he called back in reply. "And if you have any visions of any kind or just… want to talk to somebody, feel free to call Dig or I. It's not like you'll be waking us up anyway."
She smiled to herself in response and made her way back up the stairs and out the door into the cool night air, walking to where her Mini was parked, climbing in and starting the engine but sitting there for a moment in the silence, with only the purring and spluttering of her car's engine occasionally jolting her.
"Date, time, name of the bank," she muttered to herself. "Date, time, name. You can do this. You can get it. Experience shows that your visions are only a few days, at most a week, in advance of events, so come on, brain, you hear me, I need another vision tonight." She sighed, opening her eyes and slamming her hand into her steering wheel. "Wow, I'm glad that I'm alone. If Dig or Oliver heard me talking to myself they'd take back their earlier remarks about me not being crazy."
…..
Felicity jerked awake with a stuttered gasp, jolting upwards into a sitting position and immediately reaching to her bedside table for her glasses, but then accidentally over-reaching, throwing herself off balance and toppling off of her bed onto the freezing cold floor face first. Groaning, she heaved herself up, rubbing her aching elbows and finally managing to shove her glasses onto her face.
"Notes, notes, need to make notes," she murmured, her voice slurred with sleep. "Notes about the vision, so I can tell Oliver and Dig…" She lunged for her cell phone and checked the time, flinching and cowering back when the bright light of the screen made her eyes water and burn. "Ack. No. Bad technology. Bad, bad technology. Way too bright." She dimmed the screen brightness. "Okay. Better." She squinted at the time. "Okay. Scratch that. Not better. Two am."
Stumbling into her living room to grab her notebook and then to the kitchen counter, where it took her five minutes just to take the cap off of a pen, she scribbled down all the details, every last one of them, that she could recall from her vision. Then, after two cups of coffee that made her feel a little more human than she had when first waking up, she picked up her cell phone and pressed speed dial one.
Oliver picked up a few seconds later, as she expected. "Did I wake you up?" she questioned.
"No," he replied. "I just got back from a patrol actually. I was about to take a shower."
"Sorry," she said. "Well actually, I'm not really. It's too early in the morning in my opinion to be sorry about anything other than being awake this early." Then, abruptly: "I had the vision again. Wrote down more details."
"Go," he commanded shortly, and Felicity knew that he was ordering her without actually saying the words to tell him everything.
"Um, right… okay, okay, okay…" She glanced down at her notes, rubbing sleep dust out of her eyes and trying to make her hair look less like a complete tragedy. "Um, there were seventeen civilians being held hostage. Eight men, seven women, two children… and by children, I mean, uh, a teenager and a toddler. None of them injured, but all of them terrified, as can be expected in a robbery. Um, daytime, kind of evening-ish judging by what I could see out the window and shadow size. I couldn't see any bank sign or anything while I was in there but there was a calendar on the wall in the reception, a landscape one and it was still on November so -"
" - We know it's going to happen within the next three days," Oliver finished. "Good work, Felicity."
She preened a little under his praise. "Thanks, Oliver. I, er… I better get back to sleep. I have work tomorrow - today. In seven hours. So. Yeah." She made up hang up awkwardly, but then Oliver called her name again softly and she paused.
"Are you sure you're alright?" he asked tentatively.
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because you've admitted to essentially witnessing me dying in front of you three times over and each time there was nothing you could do to help or stop it," he said. "I just wanted to make sure… I know that seeing somebody die and not being able to save them can be distressing. Upsetting. It's just… you're so calm and collected about it."
"I cried yesterday," she offered meekly.
"You know what I mean."
She inhaled a shuddering breath and found that when she opened her mouth, she couldn't speak.
"I'm sorry," Oliver said after a moment. "It's okay if you don't want to reply to that. It was insensitive and I hope you can except my apology. I didn't mean to pry."
"No, Oliver… I want to tell you. There is a reason why. Why I just… how I'm able to just accept the visions and act all impassive about them." She steadied herself. This was it. She could do this. She hadn't even told her mother this, but she could tell Oliver. If anybody could understand, it would be Oliver. "My mom told me that I've been having the visions since I was born. She and my dad were the only people to ever know about it. My mom set rules because she wanted to protect me and hide me from the government while my dad wanted to use my powers to make money, except Mom kept me away from him mostly. A few days after my seventh birthday I started getting visions of him leaving us. I knew they were real and that it was going to happen, but I tried to deny it. A week after the vision he left and he never came back. After that I just had to accept that what I saw was going to come true and that whatever I saw, I had to look at it without emotion, without getting upset or angry, because it was going to happen anyway."
She paused, her eyes closed. "This is the first time I've ever tried to use my powers to change the future, Oliver. When I first got that vision of you dying… I was terrified. I couldn't bear the thought of knowing you were going to die and I couldn't stop it… I couldn't bear the thought of losing you. That's why I told you and Dig about my powers. Because I lost my dad by doing nothing, but I hope by doing something about it this time, I don't have to lose you too."
A beat of silence. Then another. Felicity held her breath in anticipation of Oliver's response, her heart hammering in her chest so hard she could feel each single impact on her ribcage, jaring her body. For a moment, she thought that maybe Oliver wasn't going to reply, was going to hang up, but then his voice came through, and relief flashed through her like a tidal wave.
"You're so strong, Felicity," he said softly. "To have experienced what you have, dare I say suffered… You kept your head up and even now...You're so strong and so unbelievably brave. I couldn't wish for anybody else on my team. You're… you're our light, Felicity. You're irreplaceable and I don't know what I'd do without you. And I can't bear the thought of losing you either."
"If I were there in the Foundry with you right now, I'd hug you," she mumbled, then flushed scarlet, cursing herself internally. "Frack. Sorry… I just ruined the moment."
She thought she could hear Oliver's smile through the cell phone when he told her, "Good night, Felicity."
"Good night, Oliver." And I hope I don't have to say goodbye.
…..
As the day of December 1st rolled around, Felicity found her heart dropping. Diggle and Oliver were with her, seated in the Foundry, and she stared at the little clock on the corner of her monitor screen as it turned from 23:59 to 00:00, signifying the end of November and the start of December.
There had been no bank robbery. No Oliver dying from a bullet to the lung. But her powers were never wrong, so what had happened?
"Felicity," Diggle started slowly.
"No," she interrupted. "No. Don't - please, stop." She began her searches, scanning through the police database and frequencies, 911 calls or any distress calls, desperately searching for a bank robbery of some kind. When none turned up in Starling, she branched out to the outskirts, to Bludhaven and then to Central City. None. No bank robberies. "Something has to be wrong. It's not - this isn't right." She turned around in her seat and as soon as she was met with Oliver and Diggle's sympathetic eyes, she burst out angrily, "This isn't right! My powers are never wrong! Don't you see how wrong this is?!"
"Hey, Felicity, it's -" Oliver reached out to brush her shoulder.
She flinched away from him, leaping out of her chair to begin pacing around to work off her fury, to think, because damn it, she couldn't think properly. "No, Oliver! It is not okay! In any shape, form or matter! My visions are never wrong. Never, okay?"
"Maybe you telling us about the robbery disrupted the time continuum," Diggle suggested, and when Felicity shot him a glare that was infused with curiosity and confusion, he raised his hands and added defensively, "I have a nephew that's obsessed with Doctor Who."
"No, that's not how the continuum works," she replied. "Something must have happened. Something must have gone wrong, I must have screwed up somewhere." She couldn't breath properly. Her breaths were coming out stuttered and short and suddenly she really needed to sit down, because she didn't think her legs were going to be able to hold her weight. "This is wrong, this is all so wrong…"
Oliver caught her when her knees buckled, supporting her under her armpits and gazing down at her with concern. She collapsed against his chest and heaved in some breaths, counting to ten and back in her head over and over again, reciting pi, and then pi 2 for good measure, until she had calmed down enough.
"It's fine," Oliver reassured her carefully. "Nothing is wrong. Everything is okay. Maybe… maybe it was was just a stress-induced dream. One that was repeated. You know, I've heard stress can cause your mind to put dreams on repeat. Yeah?"
"No!" she protested loudly. "It was not a dream! The first time I had the vision was in the Foundry, okay? I wasn't asleep, I was sitting right there in my chair in front of my monitors, working on hacking that new satellite link."
"Then maybe -"
"Stop!" she shouted, recoiling from Oliver's arms and stumbling back into her computer set-up. She cowered when Oliver and Dig tried to rush to help her, and they stopped suddenly, lifting their hands up and backing away again to show they weren't going to approach. "Please, just stop, okay." The tears spilled over again. God, she had been crying so much lately and she hated it. She hated herself for being so weak. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, okay. There's no explanation for it other than that I messed up. I messed it up somehow, I screwed up the future, I don't know how, or when, or why, but I did, that's the only explanation, and I'm sorry -"
"Felicity, no, you can't blame yourself -"
"I'm sorry," she croaked. "I'm sorry." She had let them down. She could see the doubt, the fear, the worry in their eyes, and she hated it, hated herself for making them feel that. She was an awful, messed up human being who didn't deserve them as friends. She didn't deserve Oliver and Dig just like she didn't deserve her father.
"Felicity," Oliver said, his voice breaking as he tried to reach for her.
She ran from the Foundry that day without any intention of going back.
…..
Her cell phone rang unexpectedly just as she was packing up her last box from her IT department office. She glanced over at it carelessly, her stomach dropping and throat thickening when she caught sight of Oliver's photo and name on the screen. Shutting her eyes, she ignored it and knelt down to start untangling the wires of her desktop under her desk.
It was two days after she had fled from the Foundry. December 3rd. She was planning to hand in her resignation for Queen Consolidated at the end of the day. She needed to figure out what had gone wrong, why her vision had been incorrect or how she had changed the future to stop it happening, and she couldn't have any distracted while trying to work that out, and distractions included work. She had enough savings in her bank account for her to take a year's break before she would have to start working again, and she had offers from Apple, Microsoft, Wayne Enterprises and Kord Industries waiting for her, though she knew she would end up working back at QC.
Her cell phone rang again. Oliver. Again. Sighing and biting her lip, willing herself to remain calm and cool, she picked up, greeting him flatly, "Hi, Oliver."
"Your visions weren't wrong," he said, and there was something off with his voice. He sounded winded, or pained, and she sat herself down in her chair, frowning.
"Are you okay?" she asked concernedly. "You - you don't sound -"
"Felicity," he cut in. "Your visions weren't - they weren't wrong, okay, they weren't wrong. You're not messed up, you didn't mess up the future and - you were right. You were right."
"What? Oliver, what do you mean my visions weren't wrong? They were, it's December now, the calendar in the bank during the robbery said it was November -"
"They forgot to switch it, Felicity," he interrupted. He sounded choked up. She could hear clattering in the background, and another voice, which might have been Diggle talking. "Felicity, listen to me, your vision was not wrong. The bank receptionist forgot to turn the calendar over from November to December." He gave a gasping laugh, that ended on wet coughing, raising her alarm even further. "It was still November in the bank, Felicity. Your visions weren't wrong."
"Oh my god." She finally realised what he was saying and surged to her feet, shaking. "Oh my god, Oliver, you're - you went to the bank to stop that robbery, you've been - you're shot."
"Y-Yeah. Diggle got me out before the police arrived, he's driving me to the Foundry now but I don't know whether or not I'm -" His breath hitched.
"Whether or not -"
"Shut up. Shut up, Oliver. Don't say that." She was running. Running to the elevator, to her car; running to Oliver, running to the Foundry. "I'm coming, okay, I'm coming, please just hold on. You idiot, you stupid, amazing idiot, don't you dare die. I refuse to lose you. Hold on, Oliver. Hold on!"
When she reached the Foundry, Oliver was lying naked from the waist up on one of the metal gurneys. He was still conscious, though he looked utterly exhausted. Diggle turned to face her on her arrival and took her trembling hands as she approached the gurney, unable to hold back her tears of relief, because Oliver was alive. He was alive. She hadn't lost him.
"He's going to be okay, Felicity," Diggle told her quietly, reassuring her with a small smile. "Thanks to you."
"What do you mean?"
His smile widened. "He remembered and wore extra Kevlar. Bullet very slightly nicked his left subclavian artery, tore some muscle, but nothing that'll kill him. You warning us with your visions saved his life, Felicity. He wouldn't be alive otherwise." He glanced towards Oliver and then back to her pointedly. "He wants to talk to you. I'm grabbing Chinese take out, so I'll grab your regular."
She waited until Diggle had vanished completely and the security door clicked before heading over to the archer, swiping up a pillow from their napping cot as she passed and pushing it underneath his head. He hummed and gazed up at her with tired cobalt eyes, managing a weak smile that made her bite her lip again so hard she probably drew blood. Without even waiting for him to say something, she reached out and pressed her hand to his chest, feeling the pump of his heart, the powerful pounding of life in his body, trying to hide how absolutely relieved she was that he was alive.
"I'm here," he murmured. The arm attached to his uninjured shoulder came up and he rested that hand over hers, brushing against her fingers. "You didn't lose me, Felicity."
"I almost did, though," she replied. "God, you idiot." She smacked him gently, nowhere near his shot shoulder, but he looked guilty. "I told you not to go to any bank robberies without back out. What part of that did you not understand?"
"Sorry," he sighed. "After you stormed out, we thought you needed some space and when the robbery came in on the police frequency, I needed Dig here to deal with comms and CCTV. Didn't even cross my mind that -"
"Well, it should have!" she snapped, before deflating with a huff. "I'm sorry, I'm not… I'm not angry with you. If anything, I'm angry at myself for leaving like I did… I just worry about you a lot when you're out in the field, okay? Knowing that you got hurt because I wasn't here so you couldn't have back up…"
"This was not your fault, Felicity," Oliver assured her quietly. He took hold of her hand and moved it up slightly so it was a few centimeters from the gun shot wound, hovering over it. "This would have hit my lung and I would've drowned in my own blood if you hadn't warned me with your visions. If anything, you saved my life." He brought her hand up to press a kiss against it. "You've saved my life in so many ways, Felicity. I've never told you how glad I was when you decided to join the team but - I was. I still am. We're privileged to have you here. We wouldn't be able to do what we do, save people like we do, without you here."
She frowned a little at his words. Usually he wasn't so complimentary. A smile quirking her lips up as she caught sight of his pupils. "You're on drugs, aren't you?"
"Maybe," he admitted. "I passed out for a few minutes at one point, think Diggle shot me up on something. I would normally complain but there's this really pleasant feeling despite all the fuzziness."
"Yeah, you're a little more loose-lipped than usual," she chuckled.
"I mean it," he said. "Really. You're remarkable, Felicity."
She brushed her hand through his short hair and he made a sound that could either have been a sigh or a purr, relaxing into it. "Get some sleep," she said softly. "You need it. I'm going to go work on that satellite link hack again, so I'll only be a few metres away if you need me."
"Hmm. Okay." He closed his eyes. "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
He pulled her hand up to press another kiss against it in his addled, drugged state, and she would have laughed, but at that precise moment, another vision flashed through her, straightening her back and making her eyes blow wide.
Red backless dress. A grey tux. Candlelight. Soft laughter and gentle touches. A tender kiss but filled with passion and love. A warm hand slipping into hers. And blue eyes. Crystal cerulean eyes, alight with joy and delight and such wonderful happiness.
"Felicity?" Her eyes snapped down to Oliver, who was gazing at her with an unreadable expression and as their eyes met, he raised an eyebrow. "You okay?"
"Yeah," she responded quickly. "I'm fine." She squeezed his hand before pulling away, heading back to her workstation. "Get some sleep, Oliver. I'm right here. Good night."
"Hmm. Good night."
She settled into her chair and watched the love of her life drift off slowly into a restful, calm sleep, before turning to her computers and pulling up her backing program, loosing her thoughts to the mindless tapping of the keyboard, code appearing on her screen.
Soon.