The beach wasn't completely dark. There was the fire Oliver had built, the moon was full, and the stars covered the entire night sky, stretching endlessly as far as the eye could see. All she could hear was the sound of the waves lapping against the pebbled beach. Ironically, it was almost romantic. Except for the fact that her words were anything but.
"I came here to kill you."
Oliver nodded. He didn't even look surprised, just resigned, and . . . relieved? Was that relief she saw on his face?
"Get on your knees."
Felicity didn't even recognize her own voice anymore. It sounded like she was hearing it from far away, harsh and distorted. She felt like she'd been burning up for months, carrying this rage inside her, and now she could finally give in to it, let it consume her.
Oliver got up on his knees and looked at her expectantly.
Felicity wanted to scream at him to say something, to say anything. Why didn't he protest that it wasn't him, that it wasn't his fault? What was he waiting for? She remembered that time in Central, with the guy who made everyone angry – did it feel like this? A red wave, taking her over, carrying her away. Except it wasn't carrying her away. That was the problem. When she had imagined this part, and her satisfaction in making him pay for what he'd done to her, she'd pictured cold-eyed, blank-faced Sahim, not Oliver in a ratty sweat-stained t-shirt and cargo pants, with his ever present quiver at his back. He'd put the bow down to build the fire, but he wasn't even looking at it now. He was looking at her, as if to say he trusted her to do the right thing. And she would.
"Close your eyes."
Her voice was close to cracking. Why had she said that? Why couldn't she look him in the eyes and do this? He obeyed her, immediately. She took a couple of deep breaths, and curled her finger around the trigger. That's all it would take, slight pressure, and it would be over. And then what? Her brain would not stop buzzing, slamming her with images of the future, of Oliver dead at her feet. And then what? Would she be instantly cured? Would the memories be erased from her head?
She tried to focus on Sahim pressing her into the mattress, holding her down, making her feel like she was nothing, but all she saw in front of her was Oliver, looking lost. She squared her shoulders and tried to remember the stance, and aim. It would be easy enough, at this distance. And quick. And then he would be gone. The only man she'd ever truly loved. But that was in the past. He'd destroyed all that, hadn't he? She couldn't possibly still love Oliver. That was ludicrous.
Except that she couldn't pull the trigger. She had the same epiphany she'd felt when talking about her rage, the same kind of brainstorm. She couldn't kill him. The thought of being in a world where he wasn't was painful enough. The thought of killing him was not to be borne. I had a plan, she wanted to scream. It was supposed to make things better. She could almost hear Oliver's voice lecturing her: Guns don't make things better, or worse. They're just tools.
She looked at his face as he knelt, hands on his thighs, waiting patiently, even though that little wrinkle between his eyebrows was starting to form. So, there was still some Oliver left, behind the island mask. What now? She obviously couldn't kill him. Every time she saw herself hitting him, maybe using the gun to pistol-whip him like she did Cooper, maybe shooting him in the leg, something in her shrank back. He didn't have any problem hurting her, so why was she hesitating? No, she thought. The real question was how far she accepted that Oliver had really been someone else when he'd . . . hurt her.
She looked at him, and sighed. This was a waste of time. She realised that she was still pointing a fully loaded gun at Oliver's face, and shuddered, releasing the clip, and putting it in her pocket. Oliver's eyes flew open at the sound, and he watched in amazement as she racked the slide to eject the bullet in the chamber.
"Felicity . . ."
"What?"
Her voice was sharp.
"It's not going to be that easy, Oliver."
His eyes widened, but he didn't say anything else, just stared at the ground. Her legs didn't want to support her anymore and she sat down, heavily. Her exhaustion was bone-deep, and she just wanted to fall asleep, forever.
"Are you ok?" His voice was tentative, and she felt a bit of her anger return.
"No, Oliver, I am not ok. I am as far from ok as you can get. A space shuttle couldn't get to ok from where I am right now."
Oliver was looking at her, his head tilted slightly to the side. His expression was unreadable, and it just made her angrier. She needed him to say something, show something, but he reminded her of when he'd just come back from the island, three years ago. Rationally she knew that three years of progress couldn't have just been erased by R'as al Ghul's brain wipe. It was just a matter of getting him to open up to her, but she was just so tired. It had taken all her energy just to get here, and she felt drained, and blank. And why was it up to her to do this? It's because he hurt you the most, she thought. But it was strange. She didn't feel hurt. She just felt empty, like her insides had been hollowed out, like she was just a shell, going through the motions of her life.
"Felicity . . ." She looked up, startled. She couldn't make out his expression in the flickering firelight. His next words were tentative, like he was choosing every word carefully, like he no longer knew how to have a conversation.
"Why don't you get some sleep? We can . . . we can talk in the morning."
"Really, Oliver." Her tone was bitter. "You want to talk. That's why you ran to a remote island in the middle of nowhere as soon as you remembered your name."
He looked away from her angry glare, rubbing his hands over his head in a gesture so familiar it caused her actual physical pain.
"I'm sor-"
"Do not tell me you're sorry, Oliver, don't you dare," she snapped, cutting his words short. "I don't need an apology from you."
She put the gun back in her bag, and lay down, using it as a pillow. The night was so quiet, nothing like the city. She was sure she'd never fall asleep.
She was woken by a seagull, and realized she'd slept through the night. And late into the morning – the sun felt warm on her cheek. The fire was burnt out, and her glasses were neatly folded up next to her head. Had she taken them off, or had Oliver done that for her? She looked blearily around her, and saw his blurred figure standing at the waterline, looking out to sea. She cleared her throat, and he turned around, but he was standing against the light, and she couldn't make out his expression.
He walked towards her, reaching out as if he was going to help her up, and she scrambled up before he got close. She didn't know if she could bear his touch yet. He winced, and she felt bad. Then she felt angry at herself for feeling bad. He looked to the side, unwilling, at first, to meet her eyes.
"We need to start walking – we don't want to be wandering around the forest after dark."
"Where are we going?" Good question, Felicity. Had she planned for any of this? According to her brilliant plan, by now, Oliver should be dead, and she'd be wandering over the island, stumbling over landmines. Or she could have gone to the secret prison, maybe, and confessed to murdering someone and asked for a ride off the island. As plans went, this hadn't been one of her best.
His voice was scratchy, as if he wasn't used to talking anymore.
"Remember last time . . ." He paused. She looked at him, and his face looked sad. Ah, yes, she thought. Before. She nodded, trying to encourage him to continue.
"There's this cargo plane – it's where I stayed with Shado . . . and Slade."
More bad shit, she thought. Before she might have tried to lighten the atmosphere with a quip. Now she just didn't have the energy. Sorry, Oliver. The well's run dry. She nodded and trudged on. She'd forgotten that the first part was a climb up a cliff face, which wasn't that steep, but still too precarious for Felicity Smoak, klutz extraordinaire. Of course she nearly slipped and broke her neck, and of course Oliver grabbed her arm and pulled her up. She'd thought she'd shudder and throw up when he touched her, but the reality was much more prosaic. It was just his hand, like it had been for the last three years – warm and strong, a reassuring pressure on her shoulder when she needed it. He let go as soon as she was steady, and looked like he wanted to apologize again. A look from her stopped that, and they walked on.
Some time later, when they still hadn't arrived, she decided that the talk had to happen now. She couldn't wait any longer. They'd been walking in silence, and the further they went, the more she felt everything coming to a boil inside her. She needed answers. And she couldn't wait until they reached the plane. She had to know why she'd spent the last two months feeling like a zombie. The question burst out of her as Oliver was carefully navigating the roots of an overgrown tree, checking the soil for landmines and hidden tripwires.
"Why did you do it, Oliver? You could have said no! You could have told them to go to hell!"
"No, I couldn't!" Oliver looked aggrieved at being questioned by her, and oh, he'd always been capable of pissing her off.
"So you're telling me that when they reformatted you, the setting was on rapist? Is that what you're saying?"
She was angry she could barely see. She should have shot him on the beach.
"That's not what it was like!"
"Then fucking tell me, Oliver!"
He looked surprised. Oh, so sorry my language is offensive to you, she thought.
"What do you want to know, Felicity? They remade me, and I was someone else – I even thought differently, but when I look back, it's like it was me doing – everything!"
He ran out of steam abruptly, and seemed to realise that he'd been looming over her, practically yelling in her face. He shrank back, looking horrified. Her anger subsided and she felt the irrational desire to comfort him. What did they do to you, Oliver? She repeated the question, out loud this time, and he turned towards her.
"I thought, before they started, that it would just be weapons training. Because, apparently, my sword-fighting was . . . not good."
She choked out a bitter laugh – the mighty Oliver Queen was brought to admit that he couldn't perfectly handle a weapon. He looked at her, puzzled, but she just signed for him to go on.
"It's become . . . a blur, now. I remember it, but it's like it happened to someone else. Like I'm watching a movie. I'd get one hour of sleep, and then they'd wake me, and start. I'd kneel for hours, and there was always someone reciting League teaching at me. I had to memorise everything. It wasn't just sword fighting. I had to memorise it, and repeat it, and I had to get it right the first time, and if I got it wrong they beat me. Sometimes they'd just chain me to the wall, and whip me. Sometimes they let me go to sleep and woke me five minutes later. And it never stopped. I think they were drugging me – in the food, in the water, I felt like I was off-balance the entire time. The only thing, the only person that made sense, was R'as al Ghul."
Felicity stood there, open-mouthed. Once he got started, it just all came out of him – slowly, halting, but unstoppable. She'd never heard Oliver say so much at one go, not in the three years she'd known him. Hadn't he talked about this with anyone? What kind of therapists did they have at ARGUS, that they never made him talk about what he'd been through?
He stammered to a halt, stuck on that name. He'd gone pale, and was starting to sweat.
"I think I tried to fight it at first. I kept trying to remember things – my parents, Thea. You."
He snuck a look at her.
"But I was so tired. And then, one afternoon, I just. I gave in. Every time, when they were beating me, or during the water-torture – it was always R'as al Ghul who made it stop. I know it's part of the technique, part of how they break you. But knowing it, doesn't make it not work. I'd been hanging on the wall for hours. They put weights on my knees so I couldn't stand, and I thought my arms were coming out of my sockets. And then he came. He opened the shackles and lifted me off the wall. And I . . . I loved him for it."
His voice had become a hoarse whisper, so she almost didn't catch the last words. He swallowed and cleared his throat, trying to continue.
"It was like he was my father, and my teacher, and my saviour, all rolled into one. He told me what my name was, and it was like a baptism."
Oliver seemed to notice her standing in front of him, horrified. He looked away, unable to meet her eyes.
"Once I gave in, it was so peaceful. Nothing mattered, except the league, and R'as al Ghul. When he sent me after Nyssa I was happy to do that for him – I was so grateful to him for saving me . . . not from the torture. From my previous life."
Oliver looked at her, willing her to understand. And she did. Kind of. That still didn't explain the part that directly applied to her, though. She felt almost selfish at bringing it up. And he looked terrible – his face was ashen grey and sweaty. If she didn't know better, and if she hadn't hacked into ARGUS to check the results of his physical, she would have said he was having a heart attack. It took her all her willpower to move closer to him, and slowly, like she was approaching a wild horse, put her hand on his arm. Even so, he stared at her hand like he'd never seen it before. She could feel his whole body trembling, and the look in his eyes shook her to the core.
"Oliver."
She had to say his name twice before he stopped looking for escape routes, his eyes darting wildly around him, and finally focused on her face. On the beach he'd been a remnant of his former self. This was what he'd been hiding, what was left of Oliver Queen after the league had remade him in their image.
"Oliver, why don't we sit down here for a while? You look like you could use a break."
As she spoke, she watched him, and like magic, or like someone with almost complete self-control, Oliver calmed down. She could almost see the mask settling down over his features once more. She hurriedly took her hand off his arm – after seeing what was really inside Oliver, this calm version scared her. It reminded her too much of Sahim.
"No. We need to keep moving." He turned as if to walk away, then realised she wasn't moving. He seemed to see that his tone had annoyed her.
"I'm worried about the weather, Felicity. I don't want us to get caught in a monsoon."
Felicity groaned. Really? On top of everything else, torrential rains. Awesome. That was all she needed. Especially as the thought of rain, or any kind of falling water, made her realize that a situation which had been starting to build up for a while was really getting pressing now, and for what seemed like the hundredth time that day, she cursed herself for getting trapped on a remote island, particularly one without any bathrooms.
"Um. Excuse me?"
Oliver had walked ahead with purpose, and now retraced his steps, holding on to his patience with an effort that showed on his face. She knew what was wrong with him – he was feeling vulnerable after opening up to her. Oh, that isn't all, Oliver. If you stop talking again, well, I still have a gun. He looked at her, not even speaking, just making a 'get on with it' type gesture.
"I need to pee. Urgently. Right now."
You wanted blunt, Oliver? Well, you got it.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, his eyes shut – she bet he was cursing women and their tiny bladders. He looked around him, and seemed to find a good spot, a few steps off the path.
"Do you need . . . leaves? I think these are ok?" He was hesitant, seemingly worried that he was overstepping, but she was too desperate to be shy.
"No, it's fine, I have wipes – no, I won't litter, Oliver, I'm not stupid. I just need to be sure the spot I use doesn't have poison ivy, or whatever. And you have to move away a bit."
He looked at her, puzzled. Then he nodded, and moved a few metres down the trail. As she squatted and waited for her suddenly shy bladder so co-operate, she wondered that she was getting more comfortable with Oliver. That wasn't the plan, back in Starling. The plan had been revenge. And now? What was her plan now? Was she actually feeling sorry for Oliver? She still hadn't got the explanation she wanted, the one she needed, to make sense of the blasted hellscape that was her life at the moment. And she'd get it out of Oliver if it was the last thing she did.
After what seemed like forever, they finally arrived at the plane which she remembered as being emptier the last time she was there. Right now it looked like the back room in an army surplus store. Then she was immediately irritated at herself – she didn't care. She needed to know the rest. She'd given him enough time. He'd stalked in ahead of her, and was busy clearing off something which she realized was a cot. Where had he been sleeping, then? And she'd done it again. Who the fuck cared where he'd been sleeping? Enough.
"Oliver!" It came out like a bark. She knew he heard her, because his hands tightened on the blankets he was pulling out of a box. But he didn't turn around.
"How much of al Sahim was you, Oliver? How could you do that to me?"
He froze with his back to her, seemingly looking for the answer to her question in the blankets. He passed his hand over his face, and turned towards her, taking in her angry expression. He made half a gesture towards her, maybe to put his hand on her shoulder like he used to, and she shrank back. He winced, and she looked down, annoyed that she felt sorry for him, even a little. When she looked up, he was leaning against some boxes, and his expression was less inscrutable than it had been all day.
"When I was al Sahim, I thought Oliver was dead. And then I saw you, in that warehouse. He saw you. And I don't know how, but he loved you. I loved you. And then Lyla started shooting. And we were fucked."
Felicity blinked. That was . . . not what she'd expected to hear. Apart from the profanity, which she'd rarely heard him using, that was why she hadn't been searched? Because Oliver couldn't keep his multiple personalities in check? Felicity tried to hold on to her temper, but she was starting to lose her patience.
"You could have said no to them. You could have faked it!"
Oliver glared away, and opened his mouth to answer her, and then bit back his words. He tried again.
"No, I couldn't! I had to choose, Felicity, just like they made you choose! And I knew, that if I refused, they would make the choice for me! Ivo killed Shado because I wouldn't choose! Slade . . . my mother . . ."
His voice broke on the last word.
"And I know, I know I was Sahim by then, and I shouldn't have remembered any of it! But I did, just like I remembered what I felt about you."
He tried to look at her again, and seemed to wilt in the face of her fury.
"I was so scared that they would just kill you, and leave your body for me to find. I had to convince them that I was theirs, completely, so they'd leave you alone."
She was still angry, though it was getting harder to focus it on Oliver. At the moment, he seemed just as broken as she felt.
"Why me? Why not Lyla?"
The moment the words came out of her mouth she wanted to pull them back. How very Winston Smith of you, she thought. She flushed, ashamed. When she looked up, Oliver had nothing but sympathy in his eyes.
"R'as al Ghul . . ." the name still gave Oliver difficulty, and he had to pause for a few seconds. "He said that because Lyla is a mother, that . . ."
Felicity groaned.
"Are you freaking serious?"
"I don't even know if I believed him – maybe when he told me. But afterwards." Oliver looked pensive. "Afterwards . . . everything fell apart. Nothing made sense anymore. And I started to think he'd just wanted to break me completely, by making me hurt you. And instead, I just lost faith in him, and in the League."
Felicity hardly heard his last words. Did I just say that? I just wished Lyla in my place? Am I that messed up? The sudden silence brought her head up. Oliver was looking at her, pleading for her understanding. She didn't know if she could give him that, yet. She had to know everything.
"Was that even a real punishment? Or was it something he came up with, just for you?"
Oliver winced, like it had occurred to him too.
"It was on the list they kept making me memorize. Though they made it sound like it died out in the middle ages."
He was hesitating, like he sensed she wasn't going to like the rest. She stood in front of him, her arms folded, unwilling to give him a pass on it.
"It was something to do with conquest . . . the spoils of war. That's how they explained it to me."
She'd been wrong, on the beach. Rage wasn't a red mist. It was pure white, like a nuclear blast. Oliver staggered, and she realised, distantly, that she'd punched him in the jaw. Her hand hurt like hell but she brushed it aside like it was nothing.
"I am not spoils, Oliver! I am not a thing!"
She was losing it. She could feel her control slipping away. She was distantly aware of trying and failing to catch her breath, and Oliver moving closer. She looked at her hand, and wondered where the gun had come from. She pointed it at Oliver, and this time her hand shook.
"Keep away from me! I won't let you hurt me again!"
She could see his lips moving, but couldn't hear what he was saying. What was the point, anyway? What had she gained through all this? Now she knew why, and it didn't help her at all. All her life she'd been taught to beware monsters, and, and – we just invited him in, she thought. She'd been right that night in the safehouse – she was just a bug to R'as al Ghul. He'd crushed her with as little thought as she'd swat away a fly. She saw Oliver try to move even closer through the haze that obscured her vision, and she tried, she really tried to pull the trigger this time, and she failed, again. Of course she couldn't shoot Oliver. Why had she ever thought she could? She hadn't bought the gun for Oliver, she realised, as she put it under her chin instead.
"Felicity!"
His anguished bark cut through her panic. She focused on him. He looked frantic, his eyes wild.
"Please . . . please give me the gun." His voice was shaking.
"I just want it to stop hurting, Oliver."
She couldn't speak above a whisper, but he heard her. His eyes were suspiciously shiny, and she wondered why he was crying. She took a few deep breaths, and closed her eyes. It would be quick. And then all of it would stop, the nightmares, the flashbacks, the self-recrimination, all of it. As well as everything else. No more worrying about the company, and the Arrow, and their mission. It would destroy her mother, of course. And she would never find out why her father had left them. Did she really believe in an afterlife? Or was this all there was? Was she throwing it away? Suddenly her mom appeared before her, in all her Vegas brassiness, looking as hard as nails and twice as tough – is that why I gave up my life to raise you, to let some asshole win? She felt a sudden sense of shame, and was glad her mom wasn't really there, to see her give up so easily.
She opened her eyes, and the world around her started to come into focus again. Her breathing didn't sound so loud in her ears anymore, and the ambient sounds of the forest started to filter through the rushing in her head. Her hand hurt, she realized distantly, and when she focused on the pain, she became conscious of the gun, her hand cramping around it, pressed painfully under her chin. Oliver was looking at her, his eyes pleading, his hands outstretched. She'd forgotten just how blue his eyes were. The thought came to her out of nowhere, and she had a sudden impulse to laugh. Was she still crushing on Oliver, even after all this? She pushed the thought down with an effort. Enough with the dramatics, Felicity. She took a few deep breaths, and carefully handed the gun to Oliver, wincing as her hand released its convulsive grip. All the energy drained out of her in a flood, and she sat on the cot, heavily.
Oliver grabbed the gun out of her hands, checking the magazine and the chamber. Only when he was satisfied that they were both empty, and had been all along, did he very carefully walk out of the cargo plane, lean against a tree, and throw up. She wondered distantly if he was ok, and closed her eyes, feeling nauseated. Her breaths sounded very loud to her, and she wondered if she was going to throw up, too.
His voice, coming from right above her head, startled her.
"Felicity, never do that again. Promise me."
"Do what again?" Oliver was looking at her like she'd lost her mind. "You threw up," she added, in a small voice.
He passed a hand over his face, and she noticed distantly that it was shaking. Then he carefully sat down next to her, and she could see that he was making an effort to be calm. He took her hands gently, and covered them with his own.
"Felicity, you tried to shoot yourself."
She shrugged. "The gun wasn't loaded. You saw me take the bullets out," she muttered.
He stared at her intensely.
"How could I be sure you didn't put them back in? And I saw your face, Felicity. You forgot it wasn't loaded!"
She looked down, embarrassed. He was right, she forgot. She got annoyed, suddenly.
"I'm sorry, Oliver! I'm sorry I can't deal with it and move on, like you did!"
"Felicity, I ran away to a remote island where I'd spent a couple of years being tortured, blown up, and held prisoner – that's pretty far from dealing with it."
"You never told me about being blown up." Oliver gave her a look. She'd missed those looks, she realized. Her hand hurt, and she remembered punching Oliver.
"How's your jaw?"
"My jaw?" He fingered it, and shrugged. "Your hand," he suddenly remembered, and looked closer at it, gently extending the fingers one by one. He was touching her again, she realized, and she didn't want to run away, or scream, or throw up. It was just Oliver, who always handled her like she was made of fine china.
"It's a bit bruised," Oliver was saying, "but I don't think anything's broken."
Ha, good one, Oliver. Very on the nose. He let go of her hand, and she hated herself for feeling relieved. And then she hated herself for hating herself. This was getting her nowhere. He was still looking at her, expecting an explanation for the cliché attempted suicide trope which she was already feeling embarrassed about, but she didn't really have one. She looked around her, at the interior of the plane, and it struck her again how full it seemed, compared to the last time she'd been here. There were boxes full of Army supplies, some even had ARGUS stamped on them – she could even see, at the far end, a pile of packets with the word MEAL emblazoned on them.
"Looks like an Army surplus store threw up in here, Oliver. Is that your new job?"
Yes, Oliver, after the previous Emmy reel moment, I have decided to go with flippant. That's me, full of surprises. He gave her another of his looks – she should really make a database. Which would be ironic, as yesterday she'd just wanted to put a bullet in his head.
"Diggle, I think? Or maybe Lyla? I'm not sure – a few days after I got here, a cargo plane buzzed the island and dropped off a few crates. I'm just glad all the landmines on the plain went off years ago."
"Diggle? And Lyla? The woman you kidnapped in front of her baby daughter? They wanted to help you?"
Come to think of it, Felicity remembered that Diggle had talked about Oliver coming back, especially with Thea, and not a hint of wanting revenge, or payback, or anything. Oliver was staring into space, rubbing his neck.
"Waller said Diggle was worried about me – because of what happened. At ARGUS. Or maybe it was Waller, and she was worried that Thea would sue, or something."
He noticed her look of incomprehension.
"They didn't tell you."
"What? What were they supposed to tell me?"
She tried to think back to the day they'd watched Oliver's video message, and remembered Thea asking Diggle what was wrong, and she really had to dig deep down for this one, with Oliver's neck. She forced herself to recreate the image of Oliver on the tablet screen, and suddenly remembered a ring of black bruises.
"Wait a minute – Diggle said it was fighting in the exercise yard got you those bruises!" She was angry now. She'd believed him.
"I –really? You think ARGUS has an exercise yard?" Oliver sounded pained, like he really expected her to have memorized ARGUS blueprints and treatment of prisoners.
"Do not start with me, Oliver!" She could feel the anger returning. "What did you do?"
"I woke up, Felicity!"
She'd missed that, hearing him say her name, precisely enunciated, like he was auditioning for a part on Downton Abbey.
"I woke up and everything was gone. They made me think I killed Diggle! And even though it wasn't real, at the time, I didn't care that it was Diggle. I watched him die, and I felt nothing. My own sister shot me – the expression on her face, like she hated me. And then I remembered what I did to you. And that wasn't a hallucination. I destroyed you."
He turned away from her, shaking.
"It was stupid of them to give me a sheet," he muttered. "I could have done it with a shoelace."
Before she knew what she was going to do, she punched him in the chest.
"How could you have been so selfish? Were you thinking of anyone except yourself? It would have killed Thea!"
Oliver shrugged.
"Thea's the only reason why I didn't finish the job once I came here. Plenty of trees around."
"And what about me," Felicity raged. "Did you even remember me when you made your grand gesture?"
Oliver was looking at her with a careful non-expression.
"Felicity . . . I was thinking of you. I was thinking you wanted me dead."
Felicity felt the last remnants of her anger melt away – she'd wanted him to pay for breaking her, and he was broken, too. She wanted to keep yelling at him for being selfish, even though she'd just had her own wallow in self-pity. She wanted to reassure him, but wasn't sure she could actually touch him. They were a real pair. His eyes were damp, and as she watched he scrubbed over them, roughly.
"Why are you here, Felicity, really?"
"I thought I wanted you dead, but I was wrong." She decided to be honest for once.
"I think I'm here to forgive you. Even though it wasn't you who hurt me," she continued.
Oliver shook his head. "I don't deserve forgiveness," he said.
Felicity took a deep breath. She was going to try this, and hope it wouldn't do more harm than good. She pushed on his shoulder to turn him towards her, and put her hand on his cheek. His expression changed, from sadness to shock.
"Yes, you do. And you should start by forgiving yourself."
His face crumpled up and she had to restrain her own shock – this wasn't the single manly tear of stoic suffering, these were full on sobs which took her by surprise, and him too. He covered his face with his hands, and let go, completely. She patted his shoulder tentatively, trying to calm him down, and eventually he stopped. He blew his nose, looking slightly embarrassed.
"Did you just say, 'there, there'?"
His voice sounded stuffy and choked up, but at least he was trying to lighten the atmosphere. She decided to follow his lead – there'd been enough inconvenient truths told today to last her a year. Maybe even a lifetime.
"I don't actually know what you do when a superhero breaks down in front of you," she answered, trying to keep her tone light. "Maybe I should watch Man of Steel again."
He rolled his eyes, and she smiled. He looked at her, and she blushed – his eyes were full of awe, and she didn't deserve that. She really didn't.
"So, how do you deal, and move on," he asked. "Because island life is obviously not enough."
I see through your cunning plan, Oliver – if we don't mention it, we can't be hurt by it. But it would do no harm to play along.
"Oh, support groups, group therapy, target practice, the usual," she answered flippantly. He snorted.
"Target practice?" He put his hands apart, measuring about a foot. "We were this far apart – you couldn't have missed me."
"Stop joking about the fact that I pointed a gun at you, Oliver! I can't believe I did that. Oh God, what are our lives," she groaned suddenly. "And what am I going to do here for two weeks?"
Oliver looked at her, questioning.
"You could work on some coding on your tablet-"
"Didn't bring it."
"Or on your phone-"
"Nope."
"Felicity!" His tone seemed to indicate that a Felicity without electronics showed that the situation had been worse than he'd thought.
She was resting her head in her hands, elbows on her knees.
"I know, ok? I know. I was in a crazy, post-apocalyptic mind space, and I didn't think I'd need them. After. Do not say a word, Oliver!"
He'd opened his mouth, probably to yell her name some more, but at her words he mimed zipping his lips shut.
"We are going to move past homicidal and suicidal antics, and do . . . something."
Oliver raised his hand, like he was in class. She rolled her eyes.
"Can you code on paper? Because I have so many notebooks here. Half a crate of office supplies. I don't know what Diggle thought I was going to be writing."
"That's . . . actually a good idea! Going back to my roots, kicking it old school." She looked sideways at Oliver, who was trying hard to suppress a smile. "Yes, I know, never say that again, right."
He just looked at her, and if she didn't know better, she'd think there was love shining out of his eyes. Even if there was, she wasn't sure she was ready for that yet. If ever.
"Don't stop on my account," he said mildly.
Her stomach interrupted the conversation with a loud growl, and she groaned. She hadn't eaten in over a day, having been too nervous to force down anything more than a cup of coffee before getting on the helicopter.
"There's food, right? I know they say that MRE stands for 'meals rejected by everyone', but they're supposed to be nutritional, right? Come to think of it, what were you going to eat here if they hadn't given you all that stuff?"
Oliver gave her a sideways glance.
"I haven't actually eaten any of the MREs. Ever since . . . Nanda Parbat," he lowered his eyes, "I've had a problem eating food that I haven't you know, hunted. And there's a whole carton of water-purification tablets in there." He waved vaguely towards the end of the plane. "And anyway, when I was here first, that was the only way I could eat. Hunting, fishing – good thing Yao Fei and Shado were around to tell me which plants I could eat and which were poison."
Felicity wondered what Slade Wilson had taught him, but she knew better than to ask. Her stomach grumbled again, annoyed, it seemed that she was talking about food and not putting any in her. In her belly, that is. Not anywhere else, that would be . . . fifty shades of really weird. She gradually realised that Oliver was biting his lips, and turning pink around the cheekbones.
"I said all that out loud, didn't I? Oh, this island. I have even less filter than usual."
He just half-smiled at her, and got up.
"Here, I'll get you one – I can heat it up for you." He hesitated, standing in front of the pile of MREs. "I'll get one for myself." His hands shook slightly as he reached out, and he managed to snag two. Looking at him closely, she realised he'd lost weight, and it wasn't like he had a lot of weight to lose, what with being solid muscle.
The food wasn't actually that bad, and there was coffee – sweet nectar of the gods, she thought, very well aware that if she hadn't been so hungry, she might have reacted differently. She caught herself in a huge yawn, and looked at her watch. It wasn't that late, but she just felt like she could sleep for a week. Oliver was looking at her intently, expression inscrutable as usual, and she wondered if tomorrow he'd be back to island trauma Oliver.
"No, I won't, Felicity. I promise. If by 'island trauma Oliver' you mean not speaking to anyone."
"Ugh," she said. "I better go to sleep because my filter is broken beyond repair right now. Wait a minute, what about you? Where are you going to sleep?"
He avoided her eyes, at first, then seemed to come to a decision, and looked straight at her – she'd missed his intense stares more than she'd thought.
"I haven't been sleeping . . . much. But there are blankets, and the ground, so I'll be ok. Go to sleep, Felicity. If it rains . . ."
"You'll wake me?" she asked sleepily, her eyes already closing, no matter how hard she tried to keep them open.
"You'll be woken by the waterfall hitting your face," he added in a tone of fond exasperation. But she was already more than half asleep, and couldn't be sure that's what he'd said.
When she woke up the next morning, she wasn't absolutely sure where she was, at first. Gradually, the sounds of strange birds, and rustling leaves filtered through her morning daze, and it all came back to her. Everything was sharp and clear, like she had been trapped in a fog for so long, and it had finally been dispersed. She sat up and wondered where Oliver was, and just as the thought came to her, he walked up, from the opposite direction to the beach. There was something different about him – it took her a few seconds to work it out. His hair was wet. Wait, what? His hair was wet?
"Oliver? Are you hiding a shower on the island?"
When, five minutes later, he showed her a beautiful inland lake, she spent a few seconds looking around her in awe. Then she gave him a sceptical look.
"I thought this was hell on earth, Oliver. Or at least, Purgatory on earth? Though why would it be called Purgatory anyway? Is there Purgatory in Buddhism? Back to the point, it was five years, where nothing good happened! Remember that?"
He was looking at her with his mouth open.
"Felicity, did you memorize everything I ever said to you?"
"Stop deflecting, Oliver!"
He sighed, probably already regretting his promise to keep talking instead of turning back into the brood-master, she thought.
"Look, the first thing Yao Fei did was put an arrow in me. Then he saved me, but you know – arrow. And Slade tried to kill me, then became my brother, then went crazy and spent a week torturing me. And Shado was great, and then she died. And . . . "
He threw his hands in the air, as if to say his life was ridiculous and crazy, and it was too hard to explain how quickly things could go to shit here. Felicity caught his eye and nodded her understanding.
"Besides, I told you I didn't spend all my time on the island."
"I kind of guessed before that – I haven't noticed any tattoo parlours here, and you didn't have tattoos before."
He was looking at her with his eyebrow raised, and she lowered her eyes.
"I looked it up," she mumbled, embarrassed. He just shook his head.
"You'd be surprised where you can get tattooed, even if you don't want to," he said, but didn't add anymore. He pressed a bag into her hands – more army supplies. She almost moaned with pleasure when she saw soap, shampoo and toothpaste. She was glad the towel was rough and coarse, else she might have had an orgasm.
"But isn't this bad," she said, "for, um the environment?" She was desperately hoping for him to say no, because she was dying to brush her teeth. He rolled his eyes.
"We're two people. I think the lake can take it." He seemed to realise he was staring at her, and flushed. "I'll give you some privacy," he mumbled. "I'll be back in a half hour – I don't want you to go through the forest on your own."
He was true to his word, and soon he heard him coming through the forest towards her, making more noise than usual, which she figured was for her benefit. For a second she flashed back to Oliver the silent assassin, appearing in her bedroom like a ghost, and she shuddered, glad of this new, noisy Oliver. Not that she'd spent a long time luxuriating in the water, because the lake was ice-cold. It had taken her five minutes of muffled squeals to get herself waist-deep, and then she couldn't stay in it for long, before she started to shiver. So when he finally stomped up, she'd been out for ten minutes, desperately rubbing her arms to get the circulation going.
He looked at her, seeming worried.
"You look really cold, Felicity."
"Oh, it's ok, I'm sure the circulation will come back to my toes soon."
He smiled sideways at her, and found her a warm rock to sit on. It was nice to just sit, she realised, not have to worry about work, or vigilante stuff, or anything. She could just drift away, here. At some point she would have to tell Oliver that various incarnations of the Arrow had been seen around Starling City, so that it didn't look too suspicious when he came back and took up the suit again. If he wanted to come back, and if he wanted to put the leathers back on. There had even been a tiny female Arrow, and she really wasn't sure how she was going to tell Oliver about that. She wasn't sure he would find Thea in the Arrow suit as adorable as she did. The best part had been relaying directions to Thea one night, when she'd come unexpectedly face to face with Captain Lance – his exasperated "Oh come on!" had been clearly audible over Thea's throat mike.
It was weird – when she was in Starling, she didn't care about any of this. She just put in her hours, and trudged home to her new apartment, spending hours lying awake, unable to sleep. She thought she'd ignored everything that had been happening around her, and it was all there, in her head.
Oliver had been sitting silently next to her, and she snuck a look at him under her lashes. He looked out over the lake, lost in memories, and she wished she could just hold his hand, touch his arm, something. They'd been so easy with each other in Nanda Parbat. Would they ever reach that stage again? He looked at her and smiled.
"I . . . I'm glad you're here with me . . . " he started, and Felicity had to bite down on an almost irrepressible desire to add, "here at the end of all things." Not now, pop culture brain, she said sternly, and managed to smile back at him. Good thing I didn't shoot you then, the more sarcastic part of her brain added, and she told that to shut up too.
"I usually go hunting right about now," he continued.
Felicity got up – she wasn't getting any warmer. Maybe the exercise would help.
"And I'm coming with you," she declared, determined not to take no for an answer.
He just nodded. His quiver was already on his back, and they dropped by the plane to get his bow.
A few hours later, sitting behind a bush, waiting for Oliver to take his shot, her mind drifted this way and that. Turns out hunting is incredibly boring if you aren't the one doing the actual hunting. And she drew a line at actually killing small furry animals. Her mind went to something she'd been thinking about in Starling City – well, here she was, with nothing to do, and Oliver was here too. No time like the present, right?
"I want you to teach me how to fight!"
In retrospect, her voice sounded really loud in the still forest. She watched, fascinated, as Oliver's fingers slipped on the string and the arrow flew off his bow, careening out of control, pinging against three trees before vanishing. Oliver raised his head and looked at the sky, seemingly pleading for patience. He looked at her and she mouthed, "sorry!", and he couldn't help a smile. He sat next to her and looked at her, considering.
"Before you say no, I'd like you to consider that maybe I'd like to be able to defend myself rather than wait for my Green Knight to rescue me. I'm tired of being a damsel."
"I wasn't going to say no, Felicity. And you're not a damsel."
Felicity beamed at him, wishing that all her arguments with Oliver ended this well.
The next few days seemed to pass quickly, as they fell into a routine. They washed separately, then she went hunting with him, though she looked away when he actually shot something. She'd never even suggested trying to use his bow – for one it would have to be adjusted to her strength, and besides, she didn't trust her aim. Nope, hand to hand was quite enough for her. And she still had her gun. Though that made her uneasy – she'd almost killed Oliver. The thought itself made her shudder, and she resolved to put it out of her mind. She managed to work on some programs in the afternoons, and soon filled a couple of notebooks with intricate code which she was dying to try out on an actual computer, and once again cursed herself for being so depressed she'd left all her tech behind. As for the fighting, Oliver told her about an open plain which he knew was landmine-free, and that's where they were going to train.
"I know you tried some sparring with Diggle . . . and Sara. But I'd like you to focus on blocking. And kicks."
Felicity wrinkled her forehead.
"Kicks, really? With these stumpy things?" She gestured at her legs, noticing that Oliver gave them a quick look before looking away, clearing his throat.
"Your legs aren't stumpy, Felicity. With sparring and punching you have to get too close, and you risk someone grabbing you. And, as a woman, most of your strength is in your . . . lower . . . body." He cleared his throat again.
"Especially your legs. So, kicks."
They spent an hour or so stretching and warming up, and the first few days were spent practising the blocks he taught her, and balancing. The leg drills he taught were surprisingly fun to learn, and she was surprised at her flexibility. Then he taught her the real thing – starting with a roundhouse kick. She never thought she was flexible enough to do that sort of thing, and she was amazed at what a few days of leg drills could do to improve that. He taught her a few more, but the roundhouse was her favourite, and by the end of the week, Oliver declared that she was ready to do some real sparring.
"Always keep your distance, Felicity. Only move in for the kick, and then, back out of reach. If you haven't connected, or not hard enough, you don't want anyone to grab you."
They were circling each other, and she had blocked a few of his punches – though she was sure that he was pulling them quite a bit. He was encouraging and patient, even as she wasn't sure which kick to start with. She tried a front kick to his calf, but he was never where he'd been a second earlier. He praised all her efforts anyway, and she managed to connect a few times. Then she remembered something he'd told Diggle when they were sparring, and decided to try it. She pretended she was moving out of a fighting stance to take a break, and just as Oliver started asking her if she wanted to rest, she planted one foot firmly in the ground, and swept the other in a wide arc towards his jaw. He saw her in the last fraction of a second, and moved back, managing to catch what would have been a fall in a normal person and making it a crouch.
Oliver beamed at her.
"That was amazing!"
"But I missed," she pouted.
"Next time, you won't. But not the face, please – there's nowhere here I can have my jaw wired shut."
"Oh, you just don't want anything ruining your pretty, pretty face," she scoffed, and was gratified to see that he couldn't hold back a smirk.
"I'm not pretty," he protested, pretending to be offended.
"Like a Ken doll," she added, and giggled when he mock-glared at her.
She went to sleep that night with a smile on her face, convinced that everything was going to be ok. She should have known it wasn't going to be that easy, she thought, as she woke up in the middle of the night, certain she had screamed herself awake. That had been the worst nightmare yet. Everything had been heightened and amplified, and made so much worse than what actually happened. She sat up and desperately tried to control the heaving in her stomach – she refused to let her body control her. Mind over matter, she repeated to herself. Come on, Felicity.
A canteen full of water appeared at her elbow – of course, it would have been too much to ask that she'd not wake Oliver up with her amateur dramatics.
"Felicity, don't do that. Don't run yourself down."
And she was back to babbling every thought out loud, too.
"And I haven't been sleeping that well – you didn't wake me."
She looked at him, crouched next to her cot – he looked tired, but still Oliver, not blank Sahim, so she felt reassured.
"I told you I want to get over this – I'm tired of being traumatised. And I don't want to keep talking about it either. I just want to be better already."
"Maybe it isn't that easy," he said. "Maybe you still need answers. Maybe . . . " he paused. The subject was obviously difficult for him. "Maybe I owe you answers."
Felicity thought about it. She'd meant it when she said she didn't want to keep going on and on about it. But maybe Oliver needed to talk about it, and perhaps it would help them both.
"Did you . . . tell anyone? Who knows about it? Besides the whole fricking League of Assassins, I mean. They probably put it in their blog."
She tried to pass it off as a joke, but her tone was too bitter for that. Great, Felicity. A swing and a miss. Oliver didn't even try to address the fact that assassins weren't generally known to be bloggers.
"Felicity, the only people who knew were R'as al Ghul, and the two guys who were with me that night. And they're all dead," he added darkly.
"Oh." Felicity was puzzled. "I know Nyssa killed dear old dad, but I thought all the other assassins got away, and went back to Nanda Parbat."
Oliver refused to meet her eyes.
"I killed them. The first thing I did when I got to Starling with the virus. If they hadn't been there that night, he . . . I . . . might have faked the whole thing. But they were there, and he didn't think they'd buy it. I didn't think they'd buy it. Fuck," he muttered, rubbing his head.
Felicity thought about it for a while.
"So, that was why you . . . he . . . ugh. You know, the hitting, and the . . . "
She mimed tearing at her shirt, and his face fell. He nodded, looking destroyed, and she felt sorry for bringing it up. He seemed to remember something else.
"There was someone else who knew," he started tentatively. He snuck a look at her. "Nyssa."
Really? Great. Her humiliation was complete.
"Super cool Assassin Queen knows about the worst moment of my life. Brilliant. She probably thinks I should have chosen death," she continued, the bitterness dripping from her words. Oliver shook his head.
"No. Nyssa was beyond mad at me. I don't know who told her, maybe it was R'as, bragging how he managed to break me, but she seriously wanted to kill me. I persuaded her to kill her father instead."
Felicity couldn't hide her surprise. And she'd never really wondered why Nyssa had killed her father – she'd assumed it was because he'd practically disinherited her in favour of Oliver. Might as well know everything, she thought. Secrets have a habit of coming back and biting me on the ass.
"How did you persuade her, anyway?"
Oliver seemed to be regretting he'd said so much. He had that pained look on his face she remembered from the old days. It hadn't worked on her then, it wouldn't now. She raised her eyebrows.
"She was already pretty angry at R'as al Ghul. He kind of made us get married," he mumbled, so fast that she first thought she hadn't heard him right.
"What?"
She was pretty sure her shriek woke the forest up around her.
"It's over, Felicity," he continued, trying hard to suppress a smile.
"What?"
"ARGUS told me Nyssa had it annulled, as soon as she got rid of her father."
She was speechless.
"Why? I mean, why make you marry, not why did she have it anulled."
Oliver shrugged. "I seriously have no idea. I think R'as just wanted heirs. He kept talking about blood," he continued, as if it had just occurred to him. "I don't think I was ever really the heir, just a-"
"Stud?" Her voice was sharp. "And did you?" She waved her hands around in a vague gesture, which, come to think of it, looked like she was going for interpretive dance, rather than consummation.
He gave her one of his looks.
"Do not give me that look, Oliver!"
"Of course not, Felicity! Neither of us wanted it. I think she was as scared if him as I was – I wonder how she managed to kill him." He sounded puzzled, and his eyes were far away. Danger, Will Robinson. She wasn't going to let him go back there – it was over, and they were moving on, starting right now.
"Ok, fine. Fine! We never speak of this again, agreed?"
She held out his hand, and he shook it, bemused.
"And we're going back to Starling, together. No-"
She put her hand up, in a 'stop right there, mister' gesture, as he opened his mouth.
"I'm not taking no for an answer. I'm making you an offer you can't refuse. Screw you guys, we're goin' home. Oh come on," she added, as he looked befuddled. "It was five years on the island, not fifteen!"
He smirked.
"You're messing with me!"
He nodded, and she noticed he was still holding her hand. She didn't want to let go, either, and they sat in the plane and watched as the sky grew lighter, and the forest woke up around them.
On their last morning, they walked back to the beach in silence. It was a comfortable silence which got slightly tense as they got closer to the beach, and a return to Starling city. They waited for about an hour, not saying much, before Oliver lifted his head.
"I can hear it – a few minutes out, I think."
She couldn't hear anything, but she took his word for it. Ok, here goes nothing, she thought. She pulled at his arm to get his head closer – she wasn't wearing heels, and he towered over her. He angled towards her mouth, probably thinking she wanted to tell him something, and it was a simple matter to dart to the side and kiss him. His mouth stayed closed for a second, then it opened, and his arm curled around her back, pulling her up to him. She lost herself in his warm mouth, tasting his toothpaste and the coffee they'd shared, feeling something warm pool inside her as all her feelings for him came flooding back. They broke apart, slightly breathless, and the hope in his eyes was almost painful to see. The bitter, damaged part of her wanted to throw his words back in his face – maybe one day, maybe never. But that was the self-sabotaging part of her, the part that didn't forgive. And she wasn't going to give in to it. As she smiled at him, the noise of the helicopter grew louder until it was right on top of them.
There was only a pilot on board, and he told them he'd been instructed to take them straight to Palmer Technologies. He also gave Felicity her mobile phone, and she spent a couple of minutes cooing over it happily, ignoring Oliver's smirk.
"Oh, my baby! Did you miss me? I can't believe I left you behind."
She lost herself in her backlog of emails, answering the more urgent ones. She'd decided she wasn't going to tell Oliver about the company yet. More secrets – something she wasn't particularly happy about. But there was enough Oliver wasn't going to like – Thea going out nightly in Roy's suit, for one, when she wasn't patrolling in a tiny version of the new Arrow suit. Let's go slow, she thought.
It was full night once they started approaching the city, and the lights looked breath-taking in the gloom. They landed on the helipad, and in a few seconds, the helicopter was gone. Any minute now, the door to the roof will burst open, and Thea and Diggle would run out, glad to see Oliver again at last, she thought. When the door did open, what came out was more unexpected.
"Who ordered the SWAT team?"
Her words came out in a horrified whisper, like she was in a nightmare, one of those where you try to scream and nothing comes out.
As if on cue, the chopping sound of helicopter blades descended on them, and a spotlight lit up the helipad.
"This is the Starling City Police! Oliver Queen, you are under arrest! Put your hands on your head! Get on your knees!"
The voice blared down at them, and with every word Oliver's eyes grew wilder and more frantic. No, no, no, she wasn't going to lose him now, not after all this!
"Oliver! Oliver, look at me!"
Felicity wasn't sure he heard her in the confusion – the circling helicopter, the wind, the noise. But he looked at her, hunted.
"Do everything they say," she yelled, fighting against the noise. "Don't say a word! Just ask for a lawyer, and then don't speak!"
He looked at her for a long second, completely blank, and then nodded, almost imperceptibly. He dropped to his knees and put his hands on his head, waiting for the SWAT team to rush past her and cuff him, before pulling him up, and dragging him towards the roof door. One of them was an officer in uniform, who was yelling in his ear – she hoped it was the Miranda warning, and not something to provoke him into making a break for it. The team leader handed her the arrest warrant and she took it, wordlessly, her eyes still on Oliver, who was being pushed into the stairwell. The helicopter vanished, and she was left alone on the helipad, a sheet of paper in her hand. The useless tears threatened to break out, and she blinked them back, angrily. No crying, dammit. She'd thought they were done being the butt of the universe's joke. She'd obviously been wrong about that. Back to the drawing board, she thought, as she took out her phone and started making the calls.