Oliver Queen stops at the hospital information desk, for once not here frantically asking after an injured loved one, or welcoming them back from the dead. No, his eyes are bright and he smiles at the young woman in green—Diana, her name tag reads—as he shoves his hands in his pockets, easy as can be.
"I'm looking for Lyla Michaels," he says.
Diana asks for his ID and scribbles his name on a sticker that has VISITOR printed neatly along the bottom in blue ink. She peels it off its sheet and hands it to him, so Oliver playfully smacks it against his soft grey t-shirt.
"Room four twenty-three," she says sweetly, drawing a maze-like line on a map before she tells him to follow the path she just marked in black Sharpie.
Oliver takes his time, a rare thing, enjoying the smiling faces and the cries of newborn babies. He doesn't even have to look at the room numbers, he just follows Felicity's voice. She always seems to lead him to exactly where he needs to be.
"I can't believe you haven't named him yet," she says teasingly, as Oliver leans against the doorway.
"It's tradition in my family to name the firstborn son after their grandfather," Lyla says, shooting a not-so-subtle glare in Digg's direction.
"What's your father's name?" Felicity asks, because of course she does.
"Maurice," Digg replies. Oliver can tell right away that Diggle's the one holding up this whole naming business. "There's nothing wrong with something simple, like Anthony."
Or Andrew, Oliver thinks, although he knows Digg and Lyla have already discussed that to death.
"So what am I supposed to call this little guy?" Felicity asks, looking at the baby in her arms with wide eyes. "Digglet?"
Digg's, Lyla's and Felicity's faces all screw up with varying levels of disgust when the word tumbles out of Felicity's mouth.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she says, before anyone else has time to say a thing. "I won't ever say that again, promise."
Oliver laughs, he can't help himself around Felicity, and all three heads turn in his direction. He walks over to Digg and gives him a hug, then leans down and kisses Lyla's cheek as he offers both new parents his congratulations. Lyla's bedside table is covered with a huge vase that's full to bursting with bright flowers. He knows without asking that they're from Felicity. Everything about them is just so her.
"Hey," Felicity says, smiling up at him. She scooches over just a bit, so that there's room next to her on the sterile-looking loveseat. There's another chair in the far corner, one that he probably should sit in, but right now he's not really interested in the things that he should do. So, he gently lowers himself down, careful not to disturb the sleeping baby.
"He's beautiful," Oliver says, to no one in particular. Digg and Lyla are just staring at the blanket-wrapped baby with smiles plastered on their faces, looking so in love that they don't even know what to do with it all, like there isn't enough room in this world to hold it.
Oliver though, he can't take his eyes off of Felicity. She looks good holding a baby, he thinks, and doesn't really let himself go any further than that. There's something right about the picture, something special about the way Felicity handles delicate, fragile things.
"Do you want to hold him?" she asks.
She's placing him in Oliver's arms before he even has a chance to tell her that he hasn't held a baby since Thea, and he's not really sure if he should. He'd been so careless and unburdened back then; he hadn't lived enough or suffered enough to realize just how precious life really is. It seems like Oliver's always learning those lessons the hard way.
The baby reaches out and wraps his tiny fingers around Oliver's fingertip, gripping it tightly.
"He's strong," Oliver says with kind of a laugh, looking up at Diggle. There's a pride and contentment in his friend's eyes that makes Oliver feel like maybe, just maybe he's letting his life pass him by, only part of the good things when they're happening to someone else.
Oliver and Diggle have lived very different lives that are incredibly similar when you get right down to it. They've both done unspeakable things to save people, and unforgivable things to survive. They've done the kind of things that Oliver always thought made him too sullied to be able to enjoy the simple pleasure of holding a newborn baby, much less even think about being a father to one. That's why he's always cloaking himself in darkness, going out to the dirtiest part of his city to make things right; so that people like Digg and Lyla can have a family and feel safe sending their children outside to play.
Oliver looks down at this tiny, new, innocent person that he's holding with hands that have taken so many lives. It seems wrong to even touch him, to be able to hold him like this. He doesn't know how Digg does it, how he stops his past from weighing down his present, from building a wall between him and his future.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Felicity asks.
Yes, Oliver thinks, not even knowing what she's talking about. Because she is, she's beautiful. Everything about this day is just…beautiful. So his answer should be yes, it is, but his curiosity gets the better of him, so he asks. "What's beautiful?"
"A clean slate," she says softly, a little secret between the two of them. She gently slides the back of her finger across the whisper-soft skin on the baby's cheek. His little lips pucker, and she smiles. Oliver does, too. "No matter what they've done," she says, nodding towards Digg and Lyla, "they can make it right with him, isn't that a blessing?"
Somehow Felicity always knows what Oliver's thinking, knows exactly what he needs to hear. He can barely breathe for the lump in his throat, and he's blinking back tears. Her fingertips slip gently across the nape of his neck, then her hand slides down his back, unraveling all the wound-up nerves and melting away the tension. She always manages to make him feel lighter than air.
Felicity stands, and Oliver misses her the second she walks away. It's a constant state for him at this point, missing her. Things haven't been the same between them ever since he told her he loved her, ever since he let her believe it was a lie. So she's closed herself off from him a bit, trying to protect herself from him. Like she should, he thinks, even though it hurts him, makes his heart ache. He supposes that's the least he deserves after what he's done to her.
He watches her hug Digg and Lyla, kissing both of them on the cheek, and the small smile she offers him as she walks out of the room nearly undoes him. As he looks down at the baby he's cradling in his arms, he wonders if maybe someday, when it's all over and he hangs up the hood, if maybe, maybe…
"What are you waiting for, man?" Diggle says with this half amused, half exasperated look in his eyes as he reaches out and picks up his son. His son, Oliver thinks, hardly believing it. "Don't you realize how short life is?"
It is short, Oliver knows that better than anyone. That's why he lets the people he loves just slip right through his fingers, lets them move on to better things, to safer places, to people who deserve them more than he does. Just once he wants to be able to hold onto one of them, wants to wrap his arms around them and hold on tight. During the lonely nights he spent on Lian Yu, he promised himself he'd do exactly that if he ever got back. Then he dedicated his life to his city and nothing he wanted seemed to matter anymore.
But it matters now, because for the first time in a long time, Oliver dreams about his future instead of his past, and those dreams are full of a blonde-haired IT expert with dark-rimmed glasses and a smile that's brighter than sunshine. He wonders if maybe one day he could have what Digg has if he could ever manage to stop letting her slip away.
"Go, Oliver," Diggle says. "Go."
Oliver runs—breaks out into a full sprint in the middle of Starling General.
He finds Felicity in the parking garage, his heart leading the way to her. He yells out her name and she turns, looks utterly unsurprised to see him standing there. She's almost always two steps ahead of him in every way that matters.
She stops walking and waits for him, just like she always has. Only this time, Oliver comes to her, and they stare at each other, saying more without words than they ever could with them. That's their way.
Then Oliver reaches out and threads his fingers through hers.
And he doesn't let go.