Since the prologue is just a rehash of Cuts So Deep, I've added the second chapter already.
Chapter 1
She hadn't come into work that day. He understood why. Today marked a year since the fall of the Glades and even he'd contemplated staying home and going instead to Tommy's grave. The pain in his heart overwhelmed him that morning, but he'd gotten up and gotten dressed before heading to his office in order to drown out the memories and deal with the aftermath, while putting up with the constant reminders that he still had a company to save as well. He hoped she'd found something similar to do instead of sitting at home thinking about the events of that fateful day.
When he'd called her to check in, it went straight to voicemail. His texts went unanswered as well. He was worried about her, worried that she was reliving the past in vivid detail. The images of the marks he'd seen on her thigh reminded him that she was in a fragile state and a sudden feeling of uneasiness struck him. He tried to push it down and ignore it, busying himself with paperwork, but it wouldn't go away.
At five that afternoon, he clocked out and decided he needed to go to her instead of heading to the lair. Her wellbeing was far more important than anything else at that moment, even Arrow related things. He just needed to know she was okay so the tightness in his chest would ease.
He drove himself, telling Diggle to go home and spend some time with Carly and AJ. With Deadshot having long been dispensed, the man had managed to pick up the pieces of his broken past and had begun to heal. Oliver, on the other hand, was still reconciling with his demons, and the only person who had managed to get him this far was currently not answering her phone.
Upon reaching her apartment, he parked along the curb on the other side of the street. Her car was where he always found it, two spots from the front door of the brownstone. He'd picked up a bottle of wine, her favorite red, hoping it would help ease whatever pain she was in just enough so they could talk about it.
Rather than using the front door, he went in through the back patio. It had become their thing, something only he was allowed to do, especially after hours when he'd sent her home only to end up too injured and bleeding to help himself. He knew this was far too familiar for friends, but they never spoke of that aspect of their relationship. All he knew was she cared for him just as much as he cared for her. And really, that's all he needed to know because if she harbored any of the other feelings that had crept into his heart in the year and a half they'd known each other, he was afraid it might ruin the great thing they had going.
The patio door was open a crack, the curtains blowing softly in the light spring breeze. Her room was dark, the bed still unmade from that morning. He pushed the door open and stepped inside. Setting the bottle down on her dresser, he threw off the jacket of his grey suit. It was left hanging on the chair beside her desk where he spotted her glasses, along with an empty bottle of wine. Her wine glass was nowhere to be found.
Wandering through the open door, he scanned the living room, dining room and kitchen to find them empty as well. Maybe she was in the bathroom. His head craned in the other direction to see that door shut. There was a moment of pondering whether or not to announce his arrival, but he decided it would probably be best considering the number of times he'd scared her.
"Felicity?" he called out to her as he knocked on the door. It opened slightly. That was odd. She never left the bathroom door open while she was inside. The sinking feeling he'd had in his chest that entire day returned with vigor.
Pushing open the door a little more, he called to her again. "Felic-…" He stopped mid-sentence when his eyes spied her bare foot lying haphazardly on the white tile floor. Following it up, he found her slumped over the edge of the bath tub, her face pale as a ghost, her lips a purplish-blue. His heart stopped. Her eyes were closed.
"Felicity!" He ran to her, his knees hitting the ground as he skidded to a halt beside her. His fingers pressed to the pulse point in her neck praying that she was just a little sick and that this was nothing to be too worried about. But her skin was cold and he could barely feel the beat of her heart. Looking over to the arm that kept her propped up, he found the reason why.
A cut spanned the length of her forearm from her wrist to almost her elbow. The bloody shard of glass used to slash it lay inches from her lifeless fingers. Blood seeped from the gash and pooled beneath her hand before it ran down into the drain.
He gasped then immediately took action. His white dress shirt was torn off, buttons flying everywhere before he began to shred it into strips. The first one was wrapped around her elbow while the second one was wrapped around her wrist. They were tied tightly to create a tourniquet. He hoped it would staunch the bleeding as he used the rest of his shirt to wrap around her arm as a makeshift bandage before holding it up above her head to keep her from continuing to bleed out.
Pulling the phone from his pocket, he dialed 9-1-1. The operator that answered was a calm woman who sounded to be in her early 40's. "Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?"
"My um…" Words failed him. All he could think about was the blood now dripping down her arm and landing on his bare shoulder. "My friend…" he finally mumbled.
"What happened to your friend, sir?" The woman was very patient with him, her voice conveying the empathy he so desperately needed at that moment along with a slight sense of urgency to keep him talking.
"She um… I um… I found her in her bathroom. Her arm… There's blood…" He was at a loss for words. He couldn't tell the woman on the other end of the line that his best friend had tried to kill herself. He couldn't even think about it, let alone say it. That would make it too real and too hard to handle.
"Sir, what's your name?"
"Oliver."
"And what's your friend's name?"
"Felicity."
"I need you to do me a favor, Oliver. You need to tell me the address so I can send paramedics to help Felicity. Can you do that for me?" He rambled the street address and the apartment number then told her to send them through the back because that's where the door was open. "Okay, they're on their way. It shouldn't take more than five minutes. I want you to keep talking to me, Oliver…"
But her voice was drowned out by the thoughts running through his head. Why would Felicity do this? Why wouldn't she talk to him? Why did she think this was the only way? The questions ran in a loop through his mind as it finally sunk in. He might lose the only person who knew him best, the only person who had seen all of him, good and bad.
The woman on the other end of the line kept asking him questions, but he didn't hear any of them. His focus was solely on the girl sprawled out on the floor beside him, her skin so pale and so cold it almost blended in with the tiles. The phone slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground. Scooping her up into his arms, he held her to his chest hoping his warmth would stir something inside her that would fight this, that would bring her back.
"Please, Felicity, please stay with me," he mumbled into her ear. "I can't lose you too." Images of Tommy's death swirled in his mind and the tears sprang from his eyes, cascading down his cheeks as he held her a little tighter. "I can't lose you," he wept.
Every feeling, every emotion he'd ever felt for her seeped out, leaving him raw inside and out. He cared about this woman far more than he'd ever admitted to anyone, himself included. Now, faced with the possibility of losing her, those feelings were at the forefront of his mind. "Please, Felicity," he begged, cradling her cheek with his hand as he gazed down at her pale face. "I need you. You're everything to me."
He buried his face in her hair and let himself cry for the first time since he'd watched Tommy die. That's how the paramedics found them, his arms wrapped around her tightly with his face hidden by her golden locks. Even after they'd kneeled down beside him he wouldn't let her go. His arms remained securely wrapped around her, holding her to his chest until a delicate hand on his shoulder forced him to look up and lock eyes with a woman no older than the one in his arms with black hair and olive skin.
"We're here to help," she said, her voice soft and gentle as if she were talking to a wild animal.
After a tense moment, he finally loosened his hold on Felicity and let the paramedic do her job. He continued to cradle her in his arms, though, refusing to relinquish his hold. The paramedic did her best, but he had become a hindrance to her and even he knew it, but his fear of losing her overwhelmed him.
"You need to put her down, sweetie," the woman said, again using her soft voice. He merely stared at her, his fingers digging into Felicity's cool skin. "How about we compromise? You can carry her to the ambulance and hold her hand while we do our job. Is that okay?"
Oliver nodded. They stood from the floor and walked out the front door this time. He carried her to the waiting ambulance, laying her out on the cot just as the paramedic instructed, then folded her hand between his palms. Like a hawk he watched the paramedics strip away the makeshift bandage he'd made to assess the wound. It was as ghastly as he remembered it, the red blood a sharp contrast to her ashen skin.
The ambulance lurched forward, but his focus remained on Felicity. His eyes never left her face, their fingers remaining intertwined as he prayed for a sign that she would be okay, that she would make it through this. Everything going on around him became a blur. Even after they reached the hospital, he never let go of her hand, refusing to do so even after the nurses insisted she be changed into a gown so they could more easily assess her injury. They had to pry him away in order to do it.
Two burly male nurses pulled him out of her cubicle before the others closed the curtains and shut him out completely. The fear returned full force as he tried to break away from his captors, but they continued to hold onto him, dragging him further away from his helpless friend. They shoved him into a small room and closed the door.
It was then that Oliver realized he'd been shouting her name the whole time, begging them to let him go, to let him stay. He knew why he needed to leave, that his presence was only hindering their efforts to help her. So he finally sank into a chair and let his head fall into his hands.
The door to the room opened with a soft click as a pair of light feet shuffled inside. His head shot up. Standing in front of him was another nurse, this one younger than the rest with soft auburn hair that was tied back in a ponytail and grey-green eyes that seemed to penetrate all the way down into his soul. Her soft smile and the way she looked at him as a person and not an annoyance made his defenses drop for a moment.
"Oliver Queen, right?" she asked softly, her voice as fragile as her lithe frame. He nodded. "Here," she added, holding out a set of blue hospital scrubs. He looked at her for a moment, slightly confused before realizing he wasn't wearing a shirt.
"Thank you," Oliver rasped, gingerly taking them from her.
She turned to go. "Is there anyone you'd like me to call?" she asked before opening the door.
He thought for a moment. Diggle came to mind, but he couldn't bring himself to tell him just yet, not until he knew Felicity would be okay. Oliver preferred to be alone right now anyway. There was a lot on his mind, and having to deal with another concerned person would push him over the edge. So he shook his head at the nurse.
"Okay," she replied. "I'll come get you once we have Felicity in stable condition."
"Thank you, again," Oliver said as she stepped out the door. The nurse nodded then closed it behind her.
He threw on the shirt and left the pants on the chair beside him. When he looked down at his hands, he realized they were stained red. The blood that covered them brought many difficult memories rushing to his mind. From things that happened on the island to Tommy's death, they slammed into his chest knocking the wind from his lungs. Oliver gasped, unable to breathe at that moment.
When the memories finally subsided, tears streaked down his cheeks again and his hands were shaking. He stood up and found a small sink to his right. The desperate need to wash his hands over and over overwhelmed him. Once, twice, three times he scrubbed them with soap until they were painful and raw, just like his heart. Being alone allowed him to drop the mask he always wore in favor of the full on assault from his feelings.
It was sorely needed. He hadn't allowed himself to feel in such a long time that he almost forgot what it was like. Everything he'd ever felt for the woman now hanging on to her life by a thread a few doors down pummeled him with guilt he knew he deserved. The feelings crushed him under their weight until he realized for the past year all he'd ever done was keep Felicity at an arm's length.
He knew she cared about him. How else could he explain all the things she'd done for him from infiltrating an underground casino to putting herself out as bait for a serial killer and most importantly, tracking him to the deserted island he'd run to after the fall of the Glades.
All that time He'd refused to acknowledge that his feelings for her had grown from mere friendship into something more intense, something deeper, something better. He didn't just care about her, he needed her. She had become a very important part of his life, and possibly more. She had become the light to his darkness. If anything happened to her, he didn't know what he'd do. Having her life in the hands of the doctors and nurses now made him uncomfortable at best, but he knew she was in good hands.
It didn't stop him from worrying, though. He needed to see her, to make sure she was still alive. He couldn't let her die. Not like this, surrounded by people she didn't know. If he was going to lose her, he wanted to be at her side, not several doors down. That thought alone caused his heart to seize in his chest. No, he couldn't think like that. She was going to be okay.
An alarm went off outside the door and he immediately rushed to it, throwing it open to find several doctors and nurses heading in the direction of her cubicle. His heart stopped. He ran out of the room in a full on sprint praying he'd get to her side in time. Skidding to a halt in front of the now open curtain, he found a nurse pressing on her chest as another held an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth while a doctor grasped the paddles of the defibrillator in his hands.
Oliver watched in horror as they shocked her once, her heart refusing to start. He cried out her name, begging her to stay with them as the doctor shocked her again. Panic rose in his chest when he realized this could possibly be the last time he saw her alive. He cried out even louder, "Felicity! Please don't leave me!" as the doctor tried once more to restart her heart.