Day 1
He should have known three things. This was the thought that woke Felicity from a very fitful sleep that first night. It stabbed at her heart like a sharpened blade. Now that it had invaded her mind and soul it was with her every moment. Every moment she didn't keep herself so busy that there was no room in her mind for it that is. Consequently Palmer Technologies cogeneration project was about six months ahead of schedule, the arrow cave had a host of new gadgets and programs, some courtesy of Cisco, but all installed, tested and refined by Felicity and Starling City was practically crime free.
Days 2-7
This final consequence was a team effort for sure. Like herself Dig and Roy both seemed to want to stay close to Verdant, each other and Felicity as much as possible, work as hard as possible and speak as little as possible about their missing leader. Every night since that very first one Felicity sat in her usual seat directing them to where the criminals plied their trade and the boys dispatched them with alacrity. Laurel continued to prosecute their catches though she was keeping her distance from their nightly activities. On occasion she and Felicity would touch base in daylight hours for the former to pass on information essential to the prosecution of certain captured ne'er do wells, but Laurel always wanted to talk about Oliver and speculate on where he was, why he had not returned and whether they should go after him. Felicity found these exchanges acutely painful and so she was grateful the rest of the team was not subjected to them. She suspected Laurel blamed them for not stopping Oliver, but she never asked because that was not a conversation she wanted to have. Felicity would defend Roy and Diggle to Laurel no problem if it came to that. What she couldn't do was defend herself and lately she kept wondering if she was the only one who had had the power to stop him after all. Of course Laurel would never have suspected this. Hence her refusal to open said can of worms. Bottle it up and pretend it's not there. The new motto of team Arrow. Or at least this one particular team member.
In those painful conversations Laurel was also the only one who gave voice to what everyone was thinking which may have seemed brave or important, but to Felicity it seemed just the opposite. It was easy to articulate the pressing questions about Oliver all over someone else who cared about him, but what did that get you but a moment of relief from inside your own head and a compatriot in your pain who had no more answers than you? No she would stick to the bottle it up and pretend way of doing things.
Not that she wasn't wondering all of these things herself. She was. It had been one week and they had not heard anything. Why had no one thought to inquire more minutely in to how this whole duel with the head of the League of Assassins thing worked? Did it happen right away? How long did it take for him to get where he was going? What if he needed help getting back because he was injured? She doubted the League would pitch in with medical supplies and know how if he had just killed their leader. She knew why Oliver had not shared the location with anyone. He was afraid they would follow and he wanted to protect them. Stupid man. But as she wondered all of these things, as she tried to answer all of these unanswerable questions she kept coming back to that one thought – he should have known three things, but she left him with only those two. And maybe this was the real reason she didn't want to share her thoughts, her pain. Because hers revolved around those two things that should have been three.
Those brief moments before he left were etched in her mind. When she begged him to kill Ra's Al Ghul even though she knew this would be hard for him as he had evolved beyond the killer who had returned from Lian Yu two years ago. But what else could he do? He had to kill. And he had said he would do what she asked. Granted that was before she actually asked. But his answer, his answer broke her heart. She remembered every word he said. Almost as clearly as she remembered the words she didn't say.
"Felicity, I honestly don't know if I'm a killer anymore, but I do know two things. The first is that whoever I am I am someone who will do whatever, whatever it takes to save my sister."
"And the second thing?"
"I love you." He stood there for a beat and then turned and left.
And she had stood there like an idiot. Like a mute, immobile, dumbstruck idiot. The words were not a revelation in and of themselves. It was the second time he had said them. Even though the first was part of a plan to trick Slade she still had heard them from his lips before and so they should not have been so shocking and arresting. He had as good as said them the night at the hospital and she knew he had wanted to say them after they had rescued her Mom. But she had stopped him. The words shouldn't have shocked her in to immobility. But they did. It was so Oliver. He had the ability to make her feel such a spectrum of emotions. These words filled her with a hopeful kind of joy. They sent butterflies careening in to one another in her stomach. They filled her up to the point of overflowing. In this moment they also made her angry. That now, after all they had been through he could stand in front of her and declare something so profound and life altering when he was leaving, when he was possibly dying. He dropped them like they were meant as an end and not a beginning.
But she wasn't really angry at him for saying those beautiful words. Timing wasn't important when it came to expressing love. She was angry at herself. How could she have let him go without telling him? He should have left knowing that she loved him. He should have known that no matter that he tried to push her away and no matter that she tried to stop she couldn't. She loved him, deeply, recklessly and at times pointlessly and he should have had that knowledge. How could she have stayed silent?
It wasn't a choice though. When she realized that she was standing there like an unfeeling moron she ran after him but he was gone. Stupid arrow stealth and speed. She knew she could never find him.
And so she waited for his return. They all did. And she told herself that he would know that third thing someday soon. She would make sure of it.
Day 8
Now, after a week Dig brought up the Arrow's absence coinciding with Oliver Queen's open ended vacation to South America, which had been a tough sell to Thea in the first place. They didn't want to arouse her or anyone else's suspicions.
"I think I need to don my old Arrow costume." He said exactly eight days after Oliver had left. "We can't have Oliver returning to any suspicions about his identity. There are too many sites and fan groups dedicated to tracking him to think no one is watching that sort of thing."
"I agree with the idea that someone needs to be the Arrow until he gets back." Roy agreed placing his bow in its holder. This was the only way they spoke of Oliver – when he returns, until he gets back . . . "but you are not exactly an expert with a bow and arrow."
"True," Diggle agreed with a small smile. "But if Arsenal disappears I think the kind of people we are trying to throw off would realize that you are simply going from red to green."
"And what will they think when you can't hit jack with your bow?" Roy challenged.
"They won't see me in action with a weapon only the criminals will and they don't exactly get to hold press conferences."
Before Roy could respond Diggle called on Felicity to weigh in.
"I agree with Diggle." She said even though she hated the idea of anyone pretending to be Oliver.
"Okay then. Diggle suits up in green tomorrow." Roy agreed. Felicity was both surprised and pleased at how easily the guys deferred to her. She knew neither of them had ever been interested in running things but was somewhat shocked when they approached her asking if she would, as they put it "take point" while Oliver was away. That had happened on day 3 of his absence. This was how she measured time now. Everything that happened was tracked by when it happened in relationship to Day 1 without Oliver.
And so she had become the captain of Team Arrow on Day 4. Felicity took a childish sort of pleasure in calling it that, if only in her head, knowing Oliver hated the name. Let him come back and argue with me about it she thought. She prayed. She dreamed.
Day 15
About a week into Dig's going out in green Felicity noted with pleasure that the papers, online fan sites and news stations had all carried a number of stories about his exploits. That meant it had been two weeks since Oliver had been gone and Felicity was about out of patience. She had been running facial recognition all over the world and keeping tabs on every credit card Oliver still had, including the two he thought she didn't know about. One of those had been used to buy a plane ticket to Coast City the day Oliver left, but nothing after that. Since none of her usual tactics were working she had devised a plan that was decidedly unusual not to mention it violated at least one, possibly two, of Oliver clearly and loudly articulated rules. No, he would not be happy if it worked.
After three weeks Felicity no longer cared about his happiness, only his existence. He could rail at her for the rest of their lives as long as he had a rest of his life and so on day 24 she told the guys what she wanted to do . . .
