(Disclaimer: The title of this is actually a beautiful line from the equally beautiful song, Miserable At Best by Mayday Parade.)
I enjoyed writing this A LOT and I'm not sure why other than the fact that ever since Olicity have been a thing, there has been a very huge part of me that wants Oliver to see just how much Felicity means to his life. I mean, he knows I think, but I want him to KNOW, you know?
Anyway at half 2 in the morning when the feels from 4x09 were still as ripe as ever I decided it would be a good idea to write this… so considering the way 4x09 ended, you can probably conclude for yourself what the tone of this will be. And that's the only disclaimer/warning I feel I need to make.
Please, please pretty please let me know what you think of this! I literally have poured my heart and soul into this and it required a massive amount of emotional investment…
"She's awake,"
The two words Oliver Queen never thought would break his heart.
It had been six days since the duel with Damien Darhk. Six days since he had carried the bleeding but otherwise lifeless body of his fiancée, Felicity Smoak, all the way to the emergency room. Six days since she been taken from his arms and rushed straight into an immediate blood transfusion. Six days since he had lost track of the hours that passed as he sat in the bright yellow plastic chairs in the harshly lit hospital corridor, his eyes never once leaving the door that Felicity had been taken through, the door that kept him sealed away from the only person that meant anything to him anymore.
At some point Felicity's mother, Donna Smoak had arrived, still in her pink party dress and 5 inch heels; he vaguely remembered thinking how much Felicity would appreciate those shoes. Donna was crying and Oliver had found his arms around her, her head resting on his shoulder, but he couldn't recall how his body had come to be that way. He knew that a little while later she'd stood up, said she needed some air, and he'd been left alone again.
Thea came. She'd sat beside him with her hand rested on his knee and she hadn't said anything at all and Oliver remembered that he was grateful for that. When Donna came back some time later, Thea had held her hand tightly.
And then a nurse had approached them, a tall guy in a long white coat that had pen ink smudged just below the pocket but was otherwise pristine. He'd asked them if they were family and before Oliver could even speak, Donna had quickly and firmly said that they were, all of them. She'd looked Oliver in the eyes and smiled, the smallest of smiles, but a smile all the same and he'd wished briefly that he was holding her hand and not Thea.
The nurse had taken a seat with them and Oliver had tried to listen to what he was saying but he couldn't get his brain to cooperate. There was too much white noise and he hadn't been sure if it was internal or external. The nurse had talked to them for what felt like days but in reality had been minutes, using terms and abbreviations Oliver was sure Felicity would be able to understand no questions asked.
"Is she okay?!" he'd snapped, his fists clenching, after awhile and he'd immediately regretted the venom in his voice; the venom that he felt for no one else but himself for ever having put Felicity in danger.
"Mr Queen, she's... alive. That's all that matters for now," had been the nurse's reply, a reply that had left a sour taste in Oliver's mouth.
"But she isn't awake, is she? You can't wake her up?" Oliver had asked, swallowing down the bile that had threatened to rise in his throat.
"I'm afraid not, at least right now. But she's stable, as stable as we could wish for a patient in a coma to be,"
"She's strong," Donna had whispered, reaching over Thea's lap to clutch Oliver's hand in her own.
"She is. She's very strong. But there's-" the nurse had continued, and Oliver remembered hearing Thea's quick intake of breath as soon as the word but left his lips.
"... a chance she might not remember things when she wakes up," the nurse had continued. "It's common in cases of trauma like this. Sometimes it's temporary, sometimes it's permanent. It's hard to tell until the patient wakes up. It's unclear as well just how significant the memory loss will be. It could be just the trauma itself that the brain represses, or it could be whole chunks of time. We have to make the loved ones of the patient aware of this, because the odds are always high in favour of it occurring,"
Oliver's brain had truly refused to continue listening after that. He'd stayed sitting where he was but his eyes were back on the dark wood doors again, in the exact spot they'd been before, and he couldn't hear anything except the noise inside his head. The noise inside his head that seemed adamant to torture him by replaying the scene that had lead to him being sat inside this corridor in the first place.
Gun shots. So many gun shots, he couldn't catch his breath. The sound of metal crunching and cracking, of glass threatening to splinter as the bullets came into contact with the car.
The feel of Felicity's body underneath his, her hammering heart pressing against his skin, her terrified cries as the bullets ceased to relent, slamming against the car again and again and again. Shards of broken glass under his fingertips, bouncing off of their bodies and scattering the floor.
The smell of smoke, of gunpowder, of Felicity's perfume and the wine on her breath from dinner; a cocktail of scents he'd had nightmares about for as long as he could remember, waking in a cold sweat at the mere thought of such scents having any reason to exist in the same place at the same time.
The sight of endless darkness, and then of Felicity's perfect, bright blue eyes, wide in terror and then squeezed tightly closed in protection as the glass began to cascade onto their bodies, a trickle of deep red blood already falling from above her brow where a tiny shard had made contact with her porcelain skin.
The taste of acid in his mouth as his body's automatic survival response finally kicked in and reminded him that he had to get her out of there before it was too late.
"I need to see her... can we see her?" Oliver had snapped, barely recognising that once again, he'd interrupted the nurse in the middle of a sentence.
"She's in the ICU, so one at a time, but yes, you can see her,"
Glancing up at Donna, he'd told her to go, having just enough presence to let her go first. Donna squeezed his hand again and then leaned over to kiss his forehead, and then she'd followed the nurse along the corridor towards her daughter.
The longer Donna was gone, the harder it had become for Oliver to sit still. His fingers had started to tap furiously on the armrest of their own accord and before too long he was pacing the corridor.
"It's not your fault,"
"She'll be okay,"
"Ollie, please listen to me,"
"You didn't do this, you saved her, don't you see that?"
Thea's last attempt at trying to make him feel better had made him snap.
"Thea, you don't get it! This is all because of me! So quit trying to change my mind about it and just leave me alone! You being here right now isn't helping at all!" he'd yelled, the hurt registering on Thea's face barely a second after he'd first opened his mouth to speak, her hazel eyes clouding with salt water as her brother, the person she admired more than anyone in the world, had aimed such hate-filled words in her direction.
Oliver had known he should apologise, as soon as he spoke he knew he didn't mean it, but once his mouth closed again it remained that way, even as Thea had shrugged, wiped her eyes and walked away. He'd rammed his knuckle into the hard brick wall as Thea had rounded the corner at the end of the corridor and the time between then and finally being able to see Felicity was blurred beyond the confines of his short term memory.
Felicity's room was dark, the blinds in the window pulled tightly closed, the only light source the machines that were monitoring every inch of her body.
He'd stood at the end of her bed for the longest time, taking in every inch of her, following the coloured wires as they ran from her chest, her nose, her wrists, her fingers, all the way to the corresponding machines, their beeping and whirring the only evidence that the beautiful blonde was still alive. She was hardly recognisable; her entire body was her, of course it was her, but she'd never looked less like the Felicity he knew in all the time he'd known her. Oliver remembered noticing though, that somehow amidst all the tragedy, her red painted nails had remained perfectly intact, not even a speck of paint had chipped, and the sight had made Oliver smile.
At some point he'd reached her side and grasped her hand in his, needing to reassure himself that her skin was still warm, the way it always was. He'd watched her chest rise and fall, bittersweet relief and comfort flooding his body before he'd been unable to stand any longer.
His tears had started to fall at the exact moment his knees had buckled and fell too.
That exact moment was also the moment he'd realised that there was something he needed more than oxygen, and that something was her.
That was six days ago, and it was just after 3 in the morning now and Oliver was on his way back to the hospital. He'd barely left there since the accident; the only times he'd gone back to the apartment was when someone had exerted physical force to make him go home and sleep or shower or eat, all of which he'd been furiously neglecting, wanting to stay permanently by Felicity's side in case she woke up. Being at the apartment without her was almost worse than the ferocious memories of that night that still continued to plague his every waking thought.
Felicity was the kind of person whose presence and energy fuelled a room. Even long after she'd left, you could tell she'd been there because she made you feel lighter inside somehow. And that lightness took hours to dissipate. Oliver had grown used to that lightness, had accepted it as part of him now, had identified it as the best part of him because it was ultimately, a part of her.
But the longer Felicity lay unconscious in the hospital, the less Oliver could feel that lightness inside him and the less he recognised himself whenever he happened to catch his reflection somewhere.
The nights were the worst. Sleeping alone in his own home, in a bed without Felicity, without her soft snores and her warm body pressed up against his and her tiny voice babbling about something long after they'd turned off the light, left him feeling emptier than he ever thought possible. And for a man who had spent the vast majority of his life feeling empty, that really was something. On the extremely rare occasions where he'd even bothered going to bed, much less actually fallen asleep, he'd woken in the darkness in a cold sweat and reached out for her instinctively, to find only the stinging chill of sheets she wasn't sleeping on,the reminder that he was alone hitting him powerfully in the gut and leaving him numb.
Everything was too quiet. He couldn't remember the world ever being this quiet, the deafening silence nauseating him and causing empty sobs to escape his throat and rack his body without warning. He didn't see the point in breakfast without Felicity's running commentary on her dreams, on the news report, on the colour of the sky that day. He didn't see the point in showering if it wasn't followed by Felicity taking her turn under the water jets, listening to her sing at the top of her voice to whatever song happened to be stuck in her head at that moment in time, giggling softly to herself whenever she attempted and failed a particularly high note. He didn't see the point in watching TV or reading a book if he wasn't interrupted every 5 minutes by a thought she'd accidentally said out loud, a kiss on his cheek, her cold feet seeking the warmth under his thighs or the constant clicking of her computer keyboard as she worked beside him.
Not one single part of his life was the same without Felicity around and simply remembering to breathe had become one of the hardest things for Oliver to do.
The nurse was waiting for Oliver when he arrived back at the hospital. He smiled at him, one of those medical professional smiles, as though you were someone who could break into a thousand pieces at any second, whether you were the patient or not.
"Is she okay?" Oliver asked, unable to stop his hands from shaking inside his pockets.
"Mr Queen, she's fine. She's awake and she's talking and she's as fine as anyone in her situation could be," the nurse replied, smiling that smile again.
"Can I see her?"
"You can, but Mr Queen, there's something you need to know before you do,"
Oliver swallowed, his stomach churning with emotions he couldn't put a name to.
"What's wrong?" he gulped, clenching his fists out of habit whenever his emotions threatened to become too much.
"Miss Smoak has done remarkably well considering her circumstances and while we haven't had time to run many tests yet, from what she's said so far in answer to our questions, there's been fairly significant memory loss,"
"How significant?" Oliver stuttered, feeling his heart in his mouth.
"From what we can make out so far, she doesn't remember anything at all from the last year and a half, maybe even two years. I'm sorry, Mr Queen, but she's very confused and distressed mostly about the ring on the fourth finger of her left hand,"
