Author: Some1FoundMe
Title: The Long Way Home
Rating: K+ (for now)
Summary: AU Felicity Smoak-Lance hasn't been back to her home on Star Island in five years. She has avoided it at all costs. She has made her life in Coast City, settling in at a job she enjoys with a man she could someday love. But when she makes the trek home at her mother's request, everything she thought she knew is unraveled. **Fair warning, this starts as Raylicity but Olicity is endgame.**
Chapter Two
Oliver paused halfway up the front porch steps. His gaze was locked with hers and Felicity felt her soul ignite. She felt a fire blossom in her veins and tear through her body. It was a feeling that had been buried inside of her, one that she hadn't allowed herself to feel in a very long time, and it knocked the air from her lungs. Her knees gave out suddenly and she sank unceremoniously to the ground. Ray reached for her, his grip on her arm steadying her even as she ended up on the floor.
"Sweetheart, are you alright?"
His voice was muffled as it reached her ears. She had never experienced tunnel vision like she did in that moment. All she could see was him. She could register nothing else. The man in front of her watched her with hooded eyes, his jaw locked tight, and as she continued to stare at him, a million images from their shared childhood flashed through her mind. Her erratically beating heart only seemed to pound harder the longer she sat there and she had to blink several times to clear the haze that was settling over her.
Ten years had passed since she had laid eyes on the man standing before her. If she had believed in ghosts, she would've thought that he was nothing more than an apparition. He had changed, had grown into a man that she would've been proud to stand beside, and she found herself examining every visible feature of him.
He was tall, his bare chest and stomach a mass of hard muscle, shining with a coat of sweat even in the cool of the morning. His once pale skin was sun-kissed and, she realized belatedly, littered with countless scars. She had to force herself not to touch him. His dirty blonde hair was short and disheveled and his jaw was dusted in two day old stubble.
Felicity could only imagine the expression that had found its way to her face. Shock racked her system, stealing her voice and any control that she had over her body.
"I – I thought you… we all thought…"
The sentence came out a jumbled mess but she couldn't make her mouth work properly. She shook her head.
He stared at her, his own hardened expression unwavering. A mask had settled over the face that had lived in her dreams for most of her life. Whatever it was that he was feeling in that moment, Oliver refused to show it to her, to any of them.
"I know," he muttered, his voice that same low cadence that had always warmed her from the inside out, "But I'm not. I'm here."
Her body shook with barely controlled restraint.
"Why didn't anyone tell me? Why didn't you… Why didn't you come and find me, Oliver?"
He looked away from her, allowing her question to hang in the air between them, and tears formed in her eyes for the second time in less than an hour. The gaping distance left between them caused pain to grip her heart like a vice. She suddenly realized that the man she saw was not the one she had known. He was a stranger to her.
"Felicity?"
Ray's concerned inquiry pulled her fully out of her fog and she glanced up at him. It was clear that he was confused and worried and when she opened her mouth to explain, she once again found herself at a loss for words.
Finally, she cleared her throat and found her voice.
"Ray, this is Oliver. Oliver, this is Ray."
Ray grasped her by the elbow and helped her to her feet. With his arm around her waist, he kept her steady at his side. Finding Oliver there had left her weak and weary.
"Ray Palmer. Felicity's boyfriend."
She flinched at his side, something else he didn't seem to register, and she watched as the two of them shook hands. Ray's title didn't seem to disturb Oliver in the least.
"Oliver Queen."
She saw Ray's eyes widen in recognition, "Queen, huh? Your family founded the island, right? From what Felicity has told me, they're still pretty prominent in the way things are run."
Oliver gave a brief nod in response. If Ray wanted to know more about the Queen family, he wasn't going to get that information from Oliver. And if he thought that she would be more willing to share, he had another thing coming.
"You didn't mention that you were friends with the Queens," Ray said to her.
She blinked up at him, her jaw clenched, and gave him a quick nod.
"Oliver and I grew up together."
A heavy silence settled over them and Felicity felt herself growing anxious. She had expected some odd encounters when Ray had invited himself along on her trip. She hadn't been sure how her friends and family would react to his presence in her life and she'd prepared herself for the awkwardness that would surely ensue from introducing him to everyone. She couldn't have begun to prepare for the moment that they currently seemed stuck in.
"Baby, why don't you and Ray head inside and get settled," her mother suggested, her voice startling Felicity so badly that she flinched at Ray's side. She'd forgotten her mother was there, "I'll get breakfast together and we can eat on the back patio."
Felicity turned to her mother with wide, unseeing eyes. Guilt ate up her mother's expression and she fought back the anger that boiled inside of her. She had known. Her mother had known for some unidentified amount of time that Oliver was alive and yet she hadn't called to tell her. It was all she could do not to grab her bags and rush off to catch the first ferry off of the island.
"Thanks, Mrs. Lance. That would be great."
Felicity didn't fight as Ray steered her by the elbow through the front door. She cast a glance over her shoulder, catching sight of Oliver's heavily scarred back just as the screen door closed. When they were alone in the entryway, she took over, leading him up the stairs to her bedroom quickly, not giving him a chance to look around.
"Would you like to tell me what the hell that was about?" Ray asked, perching himself on the end of her bed as she shut them in her bedroom.
She hesitated before crossing the room and dropping heavily onto the bed beside him. The hand that reached for hers was meant to be comforting, she knew, but she didn't welcome his touch. She barely kept herself from flinching.
"I really don't know, Ray," she mumbled truthfully.
He sighed, "Don't do this, Felicity."
She frowned.
"Do what?"
"Avoid the problem. You're used to it, I know, but I'm asking you now not to do this."
She shot to her feet and whirled on him.
"I'm not avoiding anything, I –"
"You and I talk about everything but your past, your childhood, your family. But you brought me here and I thought that it was a step in the right direction. I thought it was a sign that you were ready to open up."
She bit her lip to keep her 'loud voice' from coming out. He was right. She had – for as long as she'd known him – avoided getting too deep into her life on Star Island. It wasn't him. It wasn't because she didn't trust him, she did. It was because the pain of it was unbearable and rehashing what she'd been through with an outsider would do her no good.
"Look, Felicity, we've been through this. Whatever happened to you here, it's behind you. It doesn't bother me. But the way you reacted to Oliver just now… What did he do to you, Felicity?"
Felicity closed her eyes and inhaled slowly through her nose, letting the air leave her lungs in a rush before she responded.
"Oliver didn't do anything to me, Ray. He – We've known each other our whole lives. He was my best friend and I haven't seen him in almost a decade. I was just surprised, that's all."
Ray watched her. She could see the questions in his eyes. He knew that there was more to the story than what she was telling him but it was her story. It was their story. She wasn't quite ready to share it with him.
"Let's go have breakfast."
She didn't wait for him to argue. Instead, she turned and left her room ahead of him. As she descended the stairs, she slowed her pace and took in the collage of photos that her mother had hung there. The walls were full, the collection large. Many of the photos were of Felicity and her sister, Laurel, showing the transition of their lives from children to teenagers to adults. Additional photos of their family were mingled in. They were mostly candid shots, snapped at various stages of their lives, proof of the normal childhood that they had been privileged to have. At the landing where the staircase made a ninety degree turn, Felicity froze.
In the center of the wall before her, the focal point of the collage, hung a large black and white photo in a heavy wooden frame. The subjects in the photo were in each other's arms, each of them smiling, a quiet moment captured on film. Centered among the myriad family photos in their mix and match frames, this photo was clearly the one that had started her mother's collection. It caused Felicity's heart to flutter.
"I think that may be the most beautiful photo of you on that wall."
She turned, finding her father climbing the stairs behind her. Just like her mother, he hadn't changed. His beard was graying and his face housed a few more lines than it had the last time she'd seen him, but he was still the same man that she had said goodbye to. She smiled at him, the action so genuine it made her cheeks ache, and stepped into his arms.
"Hi there, kiddo. It's good to have you home."
Felicity squeezed him, "I missed you, Daddy."
"I've missed you, too, little girl."
They both turned to the photo and she was thankful that he kept an arm around her waist. She had always been his girl.
"No one told me he was back," she murmured, "No one told me that he was home, Dad."
"I know."
She rested her head on his shoulder and they stood in silence for a long moment.
"Why didn't Mom tell me that he was alright? Why didn't you?"
Her father sighed, "He asked us not to, 'Lis."
A part of her had been prepared for her father's response but it didn't ease the pain that his words brought on. What she had told Ray had been the truth. Growing up, Oliver had been her best friend. The fact that he had returned home and hadn't wanted – for whatever reason – to let her know, broke a piece of her heart.
Ray appeared behind them then, descending the stairs quietly, and as she faced him, she observed his stiff posture. His hands were tucked into his pockets but his shoulders were rigid. It was going to be a long week.
"Dad, this is my boyfriend, Ray. Ray, this is my dad, Quentin."
Ray shook his hand, "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Lance."
"So you're the man who's trying to corrupt my kid, huh?"
She flushed, swatting her dad's shoulder.
"Dad!"
Ray laughed, shaking his head, and gave her father a quick nod.
"That's me, sir."
She watched her father and Ray walk down the stairs together and disappear into the dining room. She knew that she should follow but the photo behind her drew her back in. She stared at it, the memory of that night flashing through her mind like glimpses of a movie that she couldn't remember watching. But that was because she hadn't been an observer. She hadn't been watching the moment from the outside, she had been living it.
They were teenagers in the photo. Oliver had been nineteen, her only seventeen, and her mom had been the one to capture the image of them. They were standing on the sidewalk in front of the inn, the sky behind them had been nothing but blinding sunlight, and he'd stood opposite her, cradling her face in his hands.
It had been the night of her senior prom. She'd expected to go solo, to meet up with her friends and their dates, because Oliver wasn't supposed to be there.
"'Lis, honey, breakfast!"
She shook her head and dashed down the stairs. This place was full of memories, of ghosts that lingered in every corner, and she had six more days to go before she could put them behind her again.
