Please, not him!
Oliver was sitting at the conference table in Queen Consolidated, hearing a future partner exposing the next project of his company. The man was a good speaker, talking clearly and excitedly about a new program of reduction of CO2 that could help minimize some of the problems Oliver's environmental department was faced with.
The light was down, but even in the semi-obscurity, he would always recognize the frame of the person that just left the elevator and was approaching the room, running in her high heels.
Felicity opened the conference door at the same time Oliver jumped from his seat. The silence fell over the room, while the CEO of QC ran toward the newcomer.
"Felicity, what happened?" he asked, grabbing her arms. She was shaking and he felt his throat constrict, noticing the fear running through her body.
"Tommy's school called… he is in the hospital… they said something about a roof and a fall… they wouldn't explain anything else, Oliver!" Felicity said, panic seizing her voice.
Oliver felt like the room had no air. His mind traveled to a different time, to a different Tommy… to a dying Tommy…
No, he couldn't lose anyone else!
Felicity noticed his body's tension and breathed deeply. She grabbed his biceps and grounded him, helping him return to the present.
"Oliver…" she whispered and her voice, working like a charm, put Oliver into a whirl of motion.
Without sparing a second look towards his business partners, he yelled an order to his EA to take care of everything and to reschedule the meeting. If Felicity was in another frame of mind, she would berate him for running away from a meeting, but in that moment, nothing could pass through her mind except the image of a young blue-eyed boy, crying in pain…
Diggle was ready inside the car and Felicity had barely had time to close the door when Oliver was already yelling for their friend to speed up.
Felicity couldn't stand still, moving her leg in a rhythmic motion or chewing her nails, until Oliver grabbed her hand and squeezed her fingers. She looked up, at his face, and saw his worried eyes facing forward. She noticed his wrinkled forehead and the way his jaw tensed every few seconds. She wanted to say something, to ask what was going through his mind, but before she had the time, the hospital appeared in front of them and her heart started beating a million beats an hour.
Oliver opened the door and, grabbing her hand, they ran towards the emergency doors.
Tommy's English teacher was sitting in the waiting room and suddenly jumped to his feet, noticing the rampaging couple coming his way.
"Mr. Queen… Mrs. Smoak-Queen…" the man said, but Oliver was having none of those pleasantries.
"Where is Thomas? What happened?" he growled and the man stepped back. Felicity grabbed his biceps and squeezed it, grounding him.
"He is under observation… They don't let anyone in…" the man said and Oliver scoffed.
"I'm his father! They have to let me in!" he said and looking around, searched for someone he could put the fear of God into and demand to see his son.
Noticing a passing young nurse, he walked quickly toward her, cutting her path and making her stop abruptly.
"I'm Oliver Queen. My son was brought here, I want to know where he is!" Oliver demanded, with Felicity by his side almost crushing his fingers inside her hand.
"I'm sorry, I don't know where your son is, but you can ask in there…" she said, pointing a reception desk with a man writing in a computer.
"We need to know where Thomas Queen is!" Felicity said, while still running towards the desk and making the man jump with the sudden appearance of the blonde woman.
"Hum… sure… let me…" he said, typing, while Felicity chewed her tongue, keeping herself from ripping the computer from the man and search it herself.
"He is in the observation room… number 2, but you have to wait… the doctor will be here shortly. But for what I can see it was nothing life-threatening…" the man said and the growl that reached his ears made him jump once again.
"That's my son you are talking about!" Oliver roared and Felicity had to drag him away from the frightened man.
Nonetheless, knowing his son was in no immediate danger, helped Oliver calm down enough to hear the teacher's story.
"I don't know how, but Thomas was able of opening the roof's door… I think they were playing some kind of tag game and when one of the other kids tried to grab him he ran and lost his balance… he fell over a tree and then from there to the floor… he was clutching his arm and we thought it might be broken…" the man said and Oliver pinched his nose.
"Shouldn't those doors be safer? If an eight year old can open it that easily…" Oliver said with a barely concealed threat.
"Yes, but all of us know Thomas is not any eight year old kid…" the teacher said and Felicity felt rage rise inside her.
"Well, if you are saying that just because he is able of building a computer from scratch and understands the economics of this country better than a lot of politics I know, you are wrong!" Felicity replied, and the man had the humbleness of looking ashamed.
It was not flash news to Oliver and Felicity how the intelligence of their son could make him choose less than stellar activities, like blowing up the electric controls of the football field and make the water start pouring right in the middle of the hour of the soccer training Thomas and his friends were kept from attending because of some older students' decision that they should have the field. Enough said that Oliver was called to hear a very angry principal and the parents of said students. In the end, Oliver just remarked how an eight-year old was able to bring fifteen years old to their knees and walked out with a warning to those parents about how they were educating their kids, regarding the respect for others. That night, instead of a punishment, Oliver talked with his son about respect and honor and noticed with pride how different his son was, from the brat Oliver used to be with his age. He blamed it on Felicity.
When they finally were allowed to see their son, they found Thomas in a hospital bed, a cast around his left arm and a sour expression over his face.
"Tommy!" Felicity called, running to her son's side and squishing him against her chest.
"Mom… can't breathe… and broken arm…" he said, while Felicity stepped back, keeping her hands around his shoulders, stroking his neck with her thumb.
"Thomas…" Oliver said, sighing. "You scared us, buddy…"
"I'm sorry…" Thomas said, eyeing his parents. "I was running and then I think I stepped over a puddle and before I could react I was already falling… at least there was a tree… I knew all that recycling would help someday… Mother nature always pays its debts…" Tommy said.
Felicity chuckled and Oliver smiled fondly at his son. If he was making jokes, he was feeling alright and more than anything that was what helped them finally calm down.
"Thomas, please, just be careful, okay?" Felicity asked, eyeing the cast with worry permeating her face.
Oliver was observing the scene, his frame against the room wall, while Felicity chatted with their son. He could remember his mother's words, from all those years ago "From the moment your children are born, you worry what the world might do to them."
In that moment, when Felicity entered the conference room and said those words about his son, he felt like the world was coming down on him, like he was pushed into a tunnel where he could barely fit, where he could barely breathe.
Tommy Merlyn and Tommy Queen's face fused into each other, and Oliver saw himself in front of his son's bleeding body.
His best friend was beside him, clutching his shoulder, and, this time, the one dying was his son.
"Right, dad?" Thomas' voice echoed through Oliver's thoughts and he looked up to see two identical expectant faces.
"Sorry, what?"
"I was saying I can check out free falling from my list of cool things to do and mom said she once jumped off a plane and I just can't believe that…" Thomas said, while Felicity's eyes observed Oliver's tight smile.
"Actually, that is true… I was there to watch her puke afterwards…" Diggle said from the door and Tommy yelled happily at him.
"Uncle Dig! Seriously? Mom jumping off a plane?" he started chattering with John, giving Felicity the time to approach Oliver.
She stopped beside him, her hand sliding from his arm towards his finger, interlocking them.
"Hey…" she said softly, while Tommy showed with his right hand the route of his fall to his godfather.
"Hey…" Oliver whispered back, pulling her against his body, his arm surrounding her back to rest on her hip.
"Don't think about that, Oliver…" Felicity whispered and her husband looked back, at her, surprised.
"You have that look… of when you are thinking about Tommy… about what happened to him…" Felicity said and Oliver sighed.
"When you entered and said something happened I got so scared… I can't imagine what losing Thomas would do to me… I can't understand how a parent can go on when their child is no longer there…" Oliver said, massaging his chest, like there was a hole inside.
"Because parents are strong, they have to be strong for their children, they have to be strong for their partners, and they have to be strong for the rest of the family and their friends… Parents, the good ones, are remarkable… they wake up every day not knowing if their reason to live will be okay when they are apart… and they have to live with that fear, they have to realize they can't be controlled by that…" Felicity said, but Oliver could feel the shivers running through her body. She had that same doubt, even if she tried to be strong for him, and in that moment, Oliver realized that the support of someone you love would be the only thing to help a grieving parent, even if that support came from the memory of the love your child had for you.
Oliver wondered how much his mother had to support, losing both her husband and son, having to explain to a small girl what it meant to die, to never see the people she loved the most again…
And Oliver pulled Felicity more forcefully against his body, like he wanted to fuse her with his body and approached Thomas' bed to grab his neck and kiss his forehead.
"Dad?" he asked, noticing his father's strange glistening eyes.
"I love you, Thomas!" Oliver said.
For the first time in his life, Thomas was seeing his father on the verge of tears.