AN: just something that came to me after all the al sah him stuff that's been happening. It's an AU if Sarah and Felicity were stranded on the island together. Where Sara becomes the hood and Felicity is found by A Sal-Him to join the league, it focuses mainly on them so everyone else's back story falls to the wayside a little.
The tense is all over the place and I haven't edited but eh. This is my first fic for the fandom, for those wondering I AM still writing count me in, I've had half of the next chapter for months. I've just had a major block with it.
…..ˈLitl Sən….
She had to make sure they were okay.
It was what she told herself over and over again, that she would return.
But she didn't want to.
It hurt too much; she couldn't stand the killing any longer.
No matter how much she loved him, how grateful she was. It wasn't enough anymore, not after… not after the last time. Maybe she was broken now; it's what it felt like, like she could never find who she used to be even if she searched for the rest of her life.
No, she wasn't the same. She couldn't stay here, she wasn't that person anymore. She was what he made her, forged in fire and death.
And maybe that was okay to.
It would have to be.
She was surprised about what she had learnt from her return home. Her mother was responsible for the collapse of the glades, her mother and Tommy's father.
Tommy.
She swallowed feeling tears prick her eyes as she stood behind a tree at his funeral. It was severely lacking in attendance considering how many friends he supposedly had but she understood why. His father was a mass murder, his father had MURDERED him. And she would never see him again, what she used to hold onto on that island was gone. She would never to return him; she wasn't his to return to anymore.
They'd lost their claim to each other long before the island anyhow.
-0-
She'd been surprised when Sara had revealed herself as the vigilante. It shouldn't have surprised her but it did. Of course she would be looking out for her sister, just like she was. She had gasped shaking in the bonds around her as she slid off her mask to reveal herself to her, telling her that life would never be the same.
Sara fumbled pulling down her hood herself.
"Felicity?" she whispered astonished, reverent.
It had been too much so she ran.
Until she couldn't, she wouldn't let her. She should have known she wouldn't have let her. The last time Sara had let her run from her problems (i.e. Tommy's cheating, again.) she'd gotten on a boat with her bound for China.
And that had turned out so well.
She would never not blame herself for ruining Sara's life that day.
-0-
John Diggle was wary of the silent Blonde who appeared like smoke in the foundry. She was sitting at their computers, that didn't look like their computers anymore (Barry would be pissed) like she hadn't a care in the world. He pulled out his gun but by the time it was pointed at her it had already been knocked out of his hands. Hanging from the wall swinging by a knife, she hadn't even turned around to glance at him.
"SARA!" he shouted and she ran tumbling down the stairs terrified as she planted herself immediately in front of him defensively before she caught sight of what he was staring at.
She sighed in relief but was still tense.
"You don't call you don't write," she joked staring briefly at his gun that was hanging from the wall. "Did you buy me new computers?" she asked puzzled as she approached the woman like they were old friends.
John knew then that this was the woman who was running around in black, the one who'd made Sara as pale as a ghost when she'd returned last night.
"Your system was horrible and it hurt me in my soul," she tried for levity and she almost pulled it off as her eyes darted around taking in her surroundings. Yep, thank god Barry wasn't here. He'd probably get super offended and say something offense to the scary lady with the knives.
"You're alive," was all Sara could say, she was still a few feet away but Diggle could tell she wanted to be closer.
"Felicity"
So THIS was Felicity. The woman who'd she'd gotten on the boat for. The woman she loved, she hadn't overtly stated that to Diggle more than once but it had become obvious in the brisk bits of information he'd been able to pick up. They'd had a brief conversation when she'd begun dating Nyssa about letting go and moving on.
She'd admitted to John that there had been a one sided attraction for most of their friendship but that was all it had ever been. "She had Tommy and she didn't like me like that you know? And I think the fact that she never would made it easier to love her, to never lose her… until I did… It's all my fault you know, how she died, it was my fault."
"Sara," she said and her voice shook slightly besides her carefree demeanour. "I missed you," she told her with a faint smile and Sara faltered as she tried to string words together. "Where? How? How are you alive?"
"I survived the wreck and swam to the shore." She said sparsely as she glanced at Diggle.
"But you, you know how to fight," Sara accused finally finding her bearings over her emotions and Felicity sighed nodding. "I do... Someone found me, took me in and taught me to protect myself."
Sara seemed okay to skate over the details for now, "why now? After all this time?"
Felicity paused, her face showing more emotion, real emotion instead of the smile she'd been portraying. Biting her lip slightly in a way Sara remembered she did when she was nervous.
"I needed to make sure she was safe, that they were safe." She said softly her face becoming forlorn and then John remembered she'd dated that Merlyn kid before everything happened all those years ago.
"Felicity I'm so sorry," Sara began a rush of guilt overflowing her as she thought about Tommy, how he died to protect her sister.
She held up her hand, "he saved her life, or so I'm told. He would have liked that." She said amicably with faint sadness before standing up. She was glad that they'd found each other in the mist of hers and Sara's 'deaths,' that they'd had each other.
"Why are you here now?" Diggle asked with a narrowed gaze as he watched her movements carefully, afraid to be shish-ca bobbed by another projectile.
"My family, they can't know that I'm alive Sara," she said telling Sara solely as her eyes bored into hers.
Sara's jaw twitched to show her displeasure, "Felicity," she drew out. "They think your dead it's not fair, your sister needs you."
"It's not that simple," she snapped for the first time and Diggle's hands clenched and the woman sighed running her hand through her pony tail. "The people who I was with- My family can't be in my life. This is better, safer. I need you safe." Her eyes snapped back to Sara who was glaring.
"I can take care of myself." She snapped back at her friend irritated and Felicity laughed slightly taking another step forward.
"I know I can see that and I'm proud of you. You turned the ugliness of what happened to us into something purposeful. She would have been proud to." She looked pointedly at the hood hanging over a chair and Diggle furrows his brow not having been privy to whatever they were talking about now.
Sara clenched her hands at the memory, "I can help you Felicity." she resolutely before her eyes softened imploring. "Let me help you."
Felicity closed the distance and pushed some of Sara's hair behind her ear and Sara closed her eyes at the motion almost sighing. Part of her still believed she wasn't real. That she wasn't really here, she had drowned. After Slade she had drowned.
"Not this time Sara, but if you need me… Call me on this." A phone was pressed into her hands.
"Wow what's happened to my computers?" Barry called out scandalised and Felicity's hand jerked on reflex. The knife barely missed his face.
"Felicity!" Sara scolded in a growl and she winced looking like her old self for a moment before she looked horrified.
"S-sorry I- I'm sorry."
Sara hugged her and Felicity clutched at her back but didn't allow the tears to fall. She didn't cry anymore, not in front of people. But she hyperventilated as she gripped at Sara's sweatshirt breathing in the familiar scent that was mixed with new.
The unknown. Something she wasn't a part of. She wasn't a part of this and she never would be; she was a mercenary, a murderer.
Is this where she would have ended up if they hadn't separated that day?
"Who won't let you stay Felicity?" she asked softly after a few minutes running her hand through her hair, striking her with a memory of someone else's hands moving through her hair.
Her chest tightened before she straightened and told her.
Felicity planned to return after the first member came, breaking into her old home. She'd just been thankful Thea wasn't there. It was hard; her love was fighting against her broken soul. She missed Thea, and even her mother and Sara. She liked her friends, what she was doing for the city. She could have a real life here, one where she didn't kill people.
But it would be a life without him.
In the end that had been enough of a push for her to return.
The assassin's threats rang in her ear that night. She wouldn't have her family harmed because of her and she couldn't leave him, not really.
Felicity had been ready to leave that morning, had said her goodbyes to Sara and her friends when she changed her mind.
It was the morning that she fainted in the foundry.
The morning she couldn't come back from it.
This.
At least she would carry him with her now.
It would be enough.
It would have to be.
-0-
Maseo came for her next; she killed one of them that day in the clock tower and left him to relay the message.
"It's time to come home ˈLitl Sən. Al Sah-Him will be displeased if I do not return with you." Maseo tried a last time as he balanced outside of the clock tower window.
Felicity pushed him out, breathing heavily as her hands hovered in front of herself defensively.
She was frantic when her mother had been poisoned in prison. Partly for her life and partly for what was to come.
Pit viper.
He was here.
And she knew he wouldn't leave without her.
But she couldn't leave with him.
But maybe she could make him see reason. It had sounded false even to her own ears.
"So you just want to go say high to the assassin who POSIONED your mother?" Sara asked incredulously as Felicity stomped around her lair arming herself with weapons and pulling out her pony tail. Her lipstick was smudged by her teeth from biting them.
"It was a message for me, I can talk to him. I know I can." She was nodding to herself but who was she kidding? She almost wished it was another no face assassin to come to collect her. Maseo had said the orders were dead or alive but gave her a measured look that told her he had stepped in and gave his own orders under his father's.
No mere member was going to kill the heir's beloved.
He'd once broken someone's hand for touching her too familiarly. Tao been a new member and it had been a friendly gesture of greeting she hadn't thought much of. Until her beloved had snapped his hand like a tree branch and then returned promptly to his breakfast.
She hadn't been impressed.
He's going to kill me. Felicity thought with a shiver as she ran her newly coloured nails through her hair. Sara had done them the other night for her, as they were sitting on her couch not watching the movie on her TV. It had felt like old times. Almost normal, it was the best they could hope for after the island. The almost was close enough.
"I'm coming with you," Sara stated and Felicity whipped her head around to tell her she was crazy, "I'm just going to have your back okay?"
Her hands tightened in front of her. She had to tell her, she had to tell someone.
If only she knew.
"Okay."
Crap she was so screwed.
Her heart stopped when he fell at her feet, the ribbon of fabric sliding gracefully in his hand. God he was so beautiful just like when they met.
She was delirious, she had to be. But the blue swirls flashed in front of her again.
"You're pretty," she told the eyes and she was met with a deep chuckle.
"Thank you. So are you." The voice told her obligingly and she groaned as she was shifted. "Probably more so when you're not starving to death in the dirt but I guess I'll just have to wait to see."
"Drink this," the voice commanded and she groaned as she was shifted light hitting her eyes. Everything hurt, so much. Something was hard behind her, like a wall. Her face was shielded and the eyes were closer. "Hm would you look at that, still blue." She muttered to herself.
The wall shook in humour before the voice was directing her to a canteen, she tried to focus but she was so tired. "Come now habeeb, drink for me." The voice muttered and she tried not to choke when the cool liquid burned her throat.
The walls arms pulled her closer and rubbed her back in rhythmic circles before trying again, she spluttered and it hurt, everything hurt. "shh breathe, you need to drink. You need to drink to survive."
She did as the voice asked and drank half of the canteen with shaky breaths before she collapsed against the arms. The hand was still moving along her frail back, rocking her gently.
When she had enough strength she turned her head towards the eyes that peered back at her own, piercing right through her. Her body's survival instincts told her these eyes were dangerous but they were also telling her that they had saved her.
"Why?" she managed to choke out and he turned her away again to get her to try more water again. After a few more silent mouthfuls she didn't think he would speak again until he murmured quietly into the distance.
She hadn't understood him anyway.
"Laki uyounul ghazal."
'You have the eyes of a gazelle.' He would later tell her whilst she gaped at him affronted.
"You saved my life because you think I have deer eyes?" she asked scandalised as she turned in his hold, the bath water splashing slightly at the movement. She just missed the way his eyes rolled slightly but not the breath of a laughter that followed. The noise settled her faux irritation and she smiled softly at him. She loved it when he laughed; it was a rarity she treasured along with his smile that she was privy to more than anyone.
She leant towards him to brush her lips against his, their chests brushing slightly. He returned her kiss and his hands slipped to grasp her hips tightly under the water, gliding up her sides smoothly, she shivered. Felicity pulled away suddenly and he chased her lips with a puff of vexed air. "But I'm a cute gazelle right? Wait, aren't they the animal that lion's like eat?"
He let out another breath of laughter briefer than the last as he leant his head against hers. He moved her sideways across his lap so she wouldn't hurt her neck so much by turning while he traced idle patterns on her bare thigh. "We could do that if you want to,"
"Wha-Oh," her laugh broke off as his hand inched higher and he stole her breath with another kiss.
His blue eyes pierced through her as he approached her slowly, knife drawn at his side. She could see the hurt and anger just in his eyes, the only part of his face visible to her, the part she could always read, except for in this moment. He stopped right in front of her and Felicity made no move for a weapon or movement at all, even as her hands itched.
To protect herself, to protect them.
But she had never hid from him, she wouldn't start now.
He was right in front of her when he sheathed the knife again with deft fingers and ripped the front of his mask down. There was a moment of tense decision before he yanked her forward by her head with his gloved hand, kissing her fervently. She returned it in kind for a few moments, the whole scenario having shaken her for a moment but she stilled and pulled away. Remembering herself.
He leant his forehead against hers and breathed her in deeply. He always liked the way she smelled when she wasn't on missions. Most women didn't bother with anything scented since a strong scent could give them away. But Felicity had always liked her shampoo, especially after the island. She remembered giggling and smelling her hair every two seconds after her first real bath in years.
She'd made him smell it and he'd regarded her with hard eyes before complying her indulgently, wary of the strange girl he was equally enchanted with and protective of since he'd found her on the deserted island. His mouth twitched in amusement at her pure happiness as she prattled on undeterred by his silence.
He made a point to smell her hair whenever he hugged her. It was the first time she smiled for him; he told her that it reminded him of that memory. That she was his sun.
"I've had better greetings," he told her quietly as he pulled away reluctantly from her face to see her. His arm was still wrapped securely around her, possessive even as he was angry with her. Not deterred by her pulling away, his hands flexing, he'd never let her.
"I'm sorry," she stuttered unable to look away from his eyes, still ever blue. "I didn't know what you were going to do."
He smiled slightly, his lips turning up at the sides. "Nor I honestly," he tucked some of her hair behind her ear and Felicity closed her eyes despite herself for a moment as she relished in the familiar gesture. One of many she'd missed over the last few months. It was then that she realised that they'd never been apart this long since meeting.
"We should talk," she said slowly finally getting back on track. He tilted his head slightly at her his smile in place, but it was his league smile. The one he wore when he was about to pounce.
"Do you need permission from your girlfriend first?" his voice was light but his hand clamped down tighter on her waist to indicate his displeasure of her bringing someone with her to face him.
They both turned to see Sara standing menacingly a couple of feet away from them. He let go of Felicity and angled himself in front of her before he stepped forward, she refrained from rolling her eyes at the protective gesture. She knew he knew she knew the woman in the green hood.
"I am Al Sah-Him, son of Rah Sal Gaul, heir to the demon."
"What are you doing here?" Sara snapped threateningly, her back ramrod straight. Oh great, two alpha's, this was going to end spectacularly. Felicity thought dryly.
"Felicity swore her allegiance to the league of assassins. It is time she returned to me." Oliver said abruptly. It wasn't lost on Felicity that he had signaled himself out from the league, and it hadn't gone unnoticed by Sara that he had said to instead of with.
This was going to be harder than Felicity had originally thought.
"That's not happening," Sara scoffed and he took a step forward into her space. Felicity sprang into action, knowing that Oliver would kill Sara without hesitation. He had been born an assassin, groomed to take up the mantle of demons head since childhood. No matter how skilled Sara had become she would be no match for him if he wished her dead.
Felicity's hand shot out, "Oliver." She said softly pulling on his jacket sleeve. She used his name for the first time since he arrived. The one she had given him all those years ago.
He looked back at her sharply and her face softened, "may I have a moment please?" she gestured towards Sara with a tilt of her head and her wide eyes. Oliver let out a sharp breath, hesitating for a moment before relenting.
"Fine. Say goodbye." He said tightly with no room for argument in his statement. He was being even more of a caveman than usual, she thought begrudgingly.
"Oliver," she said again but his eyes had hardened. His wall was up. It had been a large feat already that he'd shown his emotions for her in front of Sara, an enemy. No, they wouldn't get anywhere endless they were alone.
"Goodbyes are hard. I'm assuming that's why I never got one." He told her strained before he turned down the street. She watched aggrieved as he slunk away, his shoulders taunt as his quiver hit his back with each harsh movement of his stride. Her chest restricted painfully at the image she would be repeating. If everything went to plan he would walk away from her again.
"What the hell Felicity?! You're dating the heir to a demon?" Sara's voice muffled with the voice modulator with incredulity and Felicity sighed.
"It's complicated."
"He basically said you were a sack of potatoes he was going to throw over his shoulder and drag back to Assassin Island with him." She hissed.
"Okay maybe not so complicated. That's actually a really good description of him. You know he's done that once, except I was more like a sexy bag of potatoes." Felicity rambled thoughtfully before glancing back at a glaring Sara. "I need to talk to him on his own." She said seriously glancing in the direction he'd left.
Sara wasn't impressed but agreed reluctantly. "Yeah you can't really have a heart to heart with me over your shoulder." She said dryly before agreeing to meet her at the docks nearby after their conversation.
-0-
"You're different." Oliver told her with a frown as they walked side by side along the shoreline. Felicity kicked a pebble in her way, looking at her shoes carefully to avoid his eyes. They had always been a weakness of hers.
"I'm still me," she said quietly and he let out a huff of false laughter that lingered in the air due to the cold.
"The Felicity I know wouldn't have betrayed us and left Nanda Parbat under the cover of darkness." He disagreed with her, his hands clenched in resentment. She couldn't imagine what he had felt when he'd woken up alone without her that morning. What was unsaid was louder to her though, it always was with Oliver; "she wouldn't have left me."
"I didn't have a choice, the earthquake. I needed to see my family and make sure they were safe." Felicity said her hands itching beside her as they hung uselessly without his hand that was so close but felt further away than ever before.
He stopped walking, "and so they are." He allowed the emotion to enter back into his voice, "Now come home." For the first time that night it wasn't a demand, it was a plea.
She closed her eyes, "I can't." she turned around to meet his hurt gaze, vulnerable, only with her, only for her.
He would whisper those words to her when he was upset, when they were alone and he allowed himself to feel. Like the time he was made to execute his friend of many years, a traitor to the league, to the family, like she was now. Felicity had held him that night, when he'd returned silent and far away. Her hands soothed him as she ran them through his short hair and along his body, whispering reassurances to him. Tears splashed her arms as he gripped her small body tightly to him.
She loved him so much, with the rest of her damaged soul; he filled the cracks that lied broken within her, but she couldn't go back now.
"I can't go back Oliver, I'm-" she faltered and changed her mind, "I don't have much of my soul left. I can't take the killing anymore." She whispered. He knew what she was referring to specifically as his eyes sought hers. He saw the familiar pain he'd been trying hard to vanquish for months through his affection and sighed rubbing his forehead tiredly.
"I thought after...You were getting through it," he told her reassuringly as he stepped closer but she took a step back. "WE were getting through it. I know it was hard killing that-"
"Child, Oliver. He was a child."
"He was seventeen." Oliver corrected her echoing his previous condolences, when she had cried. When he had held her and shown her he loved her by kissing every inch of her, reminding her that she was the sun.ˈLitl Sən, little sun. His sun, his light, his soul when he wasn't sure he had one to begin with, not until he met her. He'd merely kissed away her tears. Only he could see them like she had seen his own. "I'm sorry habibi." He'd whispered in between kisses.
"You swore an oath; my father sent me to make sure you honour it. I have to take you back one way or another." He told her trying to steer away the conversation from that night, it wouldn't help them now to rehash things already past, a past that still haunted her. His face returned to his mask that he wore when he bared the weight of the league.
The weight of the Demon.
"We both know that's not why you're here Oliver." She told him quietly and his mask slipped slightly as he grasped for her hand tightly. It slid up her arm, cool leather against her skin before it cupped her face gently. She leant into him slightly.
"I found you Felicity, that day on the island. You were dying and I brought you to Nanda Parbat. You wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for me. You can't just leave." Me. He wouldn't say that right now, not while he was angry, his caring nature that he only showed her was gone. He gripped the side of her face and she saw the resolve and desperation haunting there.
Sara had been right; she was his sack of potatoes.
He wasn't going to leave without her. But she needed him to. Felicity blinked when something he'd said stood out to her and she furrowed her brow looking up at him.
"I wasn't with you because you saved me Oliver... I was with you because I loved you." She watched as her lie sunk into his face and her stomach clenched. She maybe should have waited to speak until he wasn't gripping her face.
His hand tightened as it moved to weave in her hair that was loose at her shoulders, "not anymore?" he asked rhetorically and she tried to turn away from him, he didn't let her, his grip persistent. "You haven't even been gone four months." Oliver grit out as he pulled her face closer, roughly by her hair. She didn't wince, allowing him this, knowing how painful her words were to him. His lips brushed the edge of her ear and she shivered, her whole body missed his. Felicity felt his mouth curve into a ghost of a smile for a moment or smirk she couldn't be sure. But she knew he'd felt her shiver.
"I don't believe you," he whispered harshly before releasing her. She swallowed taking a step away from him to reroute the conversation, which didn't go unnoticed by him.
"Ra's listens to you, you can get him to release me." She pleaded.
"No," he shook his head running his hand through it disbelievingly at her words. "He doesn't and my father has never released anyone." He let out a breath of laughter, "except for Malcom Merlyn and we all saw how well that turned out."
She took a breath and stepped into his space again, he watched warily as she slowly raised her arm to rub her hand up the side of his face, into his short hairs that she loved so much. That left marks it would leave on her pale skin, marks he would absently touch when she was clothed afterwards remembering there placement.
He watched her carefully his eyes never leaving hers as she leant into him on her toes to pull them together in an intimate embrace. He pulled her closer into him for a moment, as he softly wrapped his arms around her. Oliver turned his face into her hair and then grazed his nose across her cheek down her face.
Felicity's breath stuttered slightly in response "Do what you have to," she told his hair, her voice shaking. He gripped her tighter, not moving for his weapon, or at all. There was a moment of tentative silence before Felicity moved his hand across the knife strapped to his right side.
The one she'd accidentally cut her hand on when she'd first met him. He hadn't known whether to laugh or not as she muttered out loud to herself about being useless. That no wonder she' been starving to death when she couldn't even pick up a knife without almost killing herself.
His hand shook under hers with anger, "I intend to." he whispered harshly before he pushed her away from himself, she stumbled slightly disorientated and when she looked up he was gone.
Felicity wrapped her arms around herself and allowed the tears to fall as she stared out into the darkness.
-0-
Her sister was a line she foolishly thought he'd never cross. "Don't hurt her!" she cried into the phone panicked when she was only received with an icy response and an address.
"Oliver," she pleaded.
"Don't call me that! You've lost that right!" he yelled angrily into the phone.
"I'm the only one who calls you that!" she snapped at him before he restated she had an hour and hung up on her. She'd been talking to Al Sah-Him, and she'd made him angry.
He was angrier than he'd ever been with her. He loved the name she'd given him, that she called him Oliver.
Sara came crashing into the warehouse surprisingly in her civilian clothes. She rushed towards Thea who was crying hysterically, she hadn't wanted her to be anymore frightened if she saw her as the vigilante.
Al Sah-Him, heir to the Demon stood stoically a few feet away. He didn't move but was poised for an attack. He watched with blank eyes as Sara untied his beloved's sister, his eyes only moving away when she herself strode into the warehouse.
"Felicity?" her sister, Thea asked incredulously.
He watched Felicity swallow before making eye contact with him and nodding once. He let out a breath of relief nodding back at her sharply despite the weight that had been lifted off of his chest. She would come back home with him and they would fix this, he would fix them.
"Felicity!" she cried again as she walked to her sister and engulfed her into a powerful hug her eyes only left his as she closed her own to relish her sisters embrace.
One she hadn't felt in years.
It was harder than he thought, listening to her sister sob, not for her but for Felicity. He tried to forget about how she'd spoken about her, when she first opened up to him about her past and her family. How she missed her.
"Your alive, I can't believe you're alive."
Felicity smoothed her sister's hair over like one would to their own child as she gripped her face. She wiped under her sisters eyes, "I love you so much Thea. I'm so proud of you, you're the strongest person I know and you'll get through this." She told her resolutely.
"Leaving you again will be the hardest thing I'll ever do." He barely heard her whisper as it carried across the stagnant silence of the warehouse.
He watched as Felicity nodded to Sara over the girl's shoulder closing her eyes briefly and kissing her crown. "I love you so much."
He stopped himself from flinching, his hands twitched but not for his bow, it was out of discomfort. He remembered how Felicity always teased him about the tick he'd tried to grow out of for half of his life. His father had always scolded him for it, dolling out harsh punishment in training whenever it became obvious to him, that it was a sign of weakness. Oliver had frowned irritated at her teasing's but she'd only lifted his hand to her mouth to give the tips of his fingers a delicate kiss. She looked up at him beneath her lashes, "I love it." She murmured into his skin. 'I love you' she had mouthed in a delicate whisper.
'I love you so much.'
The girl had wailed when Sara ripped her from her sister. She shouted "NO" over and over again. He would hardly remember what she looked like when this was all said and done but he would remember her screams as well as he remembered the screams of those he had tortured, of those he had killed. Despite never laying a hand on the young girl he had ripped away her remaining family, family that was already lost to her.
She was lost to her. She hadn't been her sister in a long time. She was the league's now, ˈLitl Sən. She couldn't live by two names; she couldn't go back to who she was. She was dead here, to these people, it was best to leave it that way. Oliver reached out his hand for Felicity who stood immobilised, nodding again to her as her eyes reached his unshed with tears.
He had always been a selfish man.
She walked slowly towards him the sounds of the other two women leaving left his mind as they stumbled out of the warehouse. All he saw was her.
And then she stopped mid stride her tears flowing freely.
"Please," she whispered as her hands circled her stomach, gripping the fabric in shaking fists. "Please Oliver." It was her last plea.
It was then that he realised why she was really leaving him. His hand shook slightly as he approached and lifted it to one of hers that was circling protectively across her flat stomach.
"You're leaving me because you're pregnant?" he asked slowly even though it was clearly a statement. He was equally relieved to find the answer to his burning questions as he was terrified of the prospect. He had implemented contingency plans if he hadn't been able to persuade her but he hadn't foreseen this.
He'd kidnapped her sister because it had been the fastest option to get her back home. Efficient, not without its repercussions but he would manage, they would manage. She would forgive him eventually; he hadn't even hurt her sister or that stupid girl in the green hood.
He'd thought of convincing his father to keep her as a member purely for her technological skills, where she wouldn't have to kill. She was by far the best versed in Nanda Parbat where they surrounded themselves with tradition and would be invaluable there. She would also be safe, not even having to leave the island much or at all.
Oliver had even considered allowing her to reside here in Starling until he took over as the Demon's head in a few years. Where he could simply take her as a consort and there would be no one to defy his will as he would be at the top of the pyramid.
He had thought of many paths but he hadn't considered this particular one.
Felicity was pregnant with his child but did not wish to raise them in Nanda Parbat with him. He thought briefly about what it meant for her to want to continue this at all, without him there. She clearly wanted the child with the way she was clutching her stomach and the way her eyes were frantically looking into his, baring herself to him.
Pleading,
She wished to be released from the league and by extension him.
She didn't want their child to be a murder like them, like him.
He wasn't sure if he desired that either to be honest. But she wanted to keep them, keep a part of him with her, it was how she would be able to let go of him. He was flushed with a spark of anger because within her plans he wouldn't receive such solace.
He would have nothing.
And he didn't want nothing, he wanted her, them. As startling as the revelation was he was not unhappy, she was pregnant with his child, his child. They had never talked about children but he knew it was in his future, a future he'd planned to have with her. Becoming the Demon's head attributed him certain responsibilities like continuing his bloodline.
But he'd never really thought about it knowing it was in a more distant future. He knew she would be a fantastic mother though. She would be kind and compassionate whilst himself stern and unyielding. The light to temper his dark, perfectly balanced. He saw her holding a small smiling infant that had his eyes and her smile and he was struck with burning want.
He wanted that with her, no matter the timing.
His hand slid up from where it was placed over hers to her wrist, up her arm and to her cheek, leaving a trail of heat in his wake, his hands were oddly bare, as his touch burned through her thin cardigan. She closed her eyes as she waited for him to speak. Oliver paused before he whispered an apology into her hair; his hand moving to a pressure point on her neck. She fell into his embrace her expression startled before she lost consciousness. He tucked her hair behind her ear as he whispered one last phrase, sweeping her into his arms and carrying her out of the warehouse and into the night.
"Anaa ataajok."
After all he had always been a selfish man.
.
.
Fin.
AN: I googled the Arabic stuff so sorry if it's off. "Anaa ataajok." Roughly means; I need you.
Habeeb: Sweetheart (can mean the same as Habibi but for the scene I meant sweetheart.)
Laki uyounul ghazal: You have the eyes of a gazelle. (Apparently in Arabic poetry gazelles are metaphorically referred to as beautiful women. There are references to the 'lethal spears' of a beautiful woman's gaze. –In my universe Oliver saw that she was a fighter in her eyes and that's why he saved her, because she was a survivor.-The phrase can seemingly also mean he has fallen under her spell sooner than she.) not that I'm an expert or anything please don't yell at me for being wrong It's just me and the google.
Habibi : My love
I'm thinking about writing a follow up with her back in Nada Parbat with him after the ending. Maybe with more flashbacks to their happier times seeing as how she'll be really pissed at him after this. Like when she named him Oliver and her learning to fight or something. Anyway let me know if you'd like more.