"Stop! Stop! Stop.." Felicity cried desperately as she watched the vitals on Oliver's screen spike and drop a thousand times. Oliver's head involuntarily shook from one side to another as the stocks were administered. His heart rate was erratic, his brainwaves were unreadable. Felicity was halfway in the door wailing and screaming at the doctors. Diggle had his hands around her body restraining her from attacking the doctors who were doing this to Oliver. "Stop! Stop! You're hurting him!" But her words were not heard. They were virtually ignored.
The doctors focused on his vitals and stats. They weren't listening to Felicity, Dr. Farmington was fascinated at what he was seeing, too entranced to tell anyone what to do. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. His brain was not only not responding to the treatment but fighting it! It was astonishing. It wasn't until one of the nurses yelled his name that he turned away from the monitors.
"He shouldn't be able to take much more of this at this rate. I think we should stop. Is that what we should do Dr?" She asked calmly. Farmington's eyes flickered as he focused on her.
"Yes."He trailed off again. "Yes. Yes! Right, stop the procedure!" It couldn't have been a minute sooner because Dig had just lost his grip. Felicity came running at Dr Farmington with immense rage. She wasn't one to fight or lose it but she so close to raising her fist. She pounded her closed fists on the doctor who didn't even moved, her punches had no heart behind them. She gave up wuickly and rushed to Oliver. The nurses were all piled onto one side of his bed checking his vitals, looking for neurological damage or improvement, and helping him stabilize.
Felicity was in tears. She grabbed Oliver's closest hand and stared at his closed eyes. No one could tell what the damage could be. No one had foreseen such horrible effects, because there was no cause for such issues.
"Oliver, please be okay. Don't scare me like this again. I don't know what I would do without you."
Time had been still for Oliver. He had felt the jolt, the pain, then nothing. Everything was black. No images, no smells, no sounds. But in an instant he heard something. So faint. Like an echo that had crossed a hundred miles. "I don't know what I would do without you..."
"Felicity..." His eyes fluttered open. The blurs slowly cleared away to a distinct face. It was Felicity staring over him with a relieved smile. Where was he now? Was he in the reality he remembered with the hood, the supposed dream? Or what he now referred to as reality?
"Oliver. Thank god you're okay. We don't know what happened. But you're going to be fine." Felicity spoke softly. Oliver smiled brightly and blinked a couple times. To the left of felicity, Tommy stood equally relieved.
That was that. If something like that hadn't wrenched him from the reality than it had to be real. There was no more denying it. No more delays. He had to accept right there and then that this was his life. He had to for the felicity and himself. "I'm fine. I'm pretty sure I'm fine." She rubbed her hands through his short hair, staring at him relieved and lovingly. He hadn't been fair to her the day before. He had been rude and agitated. He wanted to apologize, but his words were stopped.
"All I did yesterday was nag you and nag you. I can't make you stop being stubborn. I can't force you to be anyone but Oliver. No matter which Oliver that is." She took his hand and stood from her perch on the bed, having the same little defeated smile she always had when she was upset. Oliver squeezed it.
"No, no. You were right. I haven't been fair to you. It's time to face reality. I have a good, simple life, I have my best friend, and you, are my beautiful wonderful wife." The sediment brought a tear to Felicity's eye. "But I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not sure I love you the same way you love me. That's one thing you can't rush me on. From what I remember I've always been attracted to you. So I'm going to start acting on what I'm feeling." Oliver wasn't very good at acting on his emotions. But he was suddenly married, he had been married for years it turned out, which meant he had acted on love before.
She intertwined her hands into his. "I'm just happy that you're okay, again." She said happily.
"Like you said... you don't know what you'd do without me." He joked repeating what he had heard her say. Her head jerked up, she was smiling but quizzically.
"I never said that, but I suppose."
Oliver torso rose from his bed, his head stirring. She must be mistaken he thought. He knew he heard her say it when he was waking up. "Yes, yes you did. I heard you." He was sure and he spoke sure of himself. But Felicity returned his expression with confusion.
"Oliver I didn't say that. I hadn't been speaking when you were waking up. My first words were, 'thank God you're okay.' I'm sure of it. We were all silent until you spoke my name. Maybe you were dreaming." She said reassuringly. She put her hand on his leg but he intercepted. What he heard was too vivid to have been his imagination.
"No, no you said it I heard you. Felicity, I'm sure." She said seriously.
"But I didn't say it." She responded just as serious. Then they sat in silence. Oliver was her but she was too sad to look back. She thought they were making progress, but he wasn't giving in. When he was sure of something he didn't let it go, she knew that. That's why she was sad. He wasn't going to let this go easily. "Okay. Believe what you want, I'm just glad you are okay. I'm sick of starting over." Oliver smiled. He wasn't giving in on what he heard but liked knowing that felicity was there for him through it all. "Can I do something?" Felicity asked biting her lip.
"What is it bad?" He asked, his smile turning into a large grin in anticipation of what she was going to do."
"No. Remember how I was telling you about how things used to be? How we would just wrap our arms around each other and lay on the couch?" Oliver nodded. She had told him earlier and he had to say it did appeal to him. Without another word Felicity climbed the rest of the way onto the bed. She scooted herself beside him till her head was above the pillow they now shared. Oliver felt it to be a bit awkward for her to invite herself onto his hospital bed but did not detour her. In fact, he sat up enabling her to rest her head against his now outstretched arm, and wrapped it around her shoulder as she curled up into him. One of her arms circled around his neck and the other rested on his chest. Oliver's other arm rested on her hip, not surrounding it but resting on top.
Then there was silence once again. But this wasn't a bad silence created by harsh words or misunderstandings. This was a good silence, one that existed because there was nothing that needed to be expressed through words. His hand surrounded her shoulders his grip growing tighter every time she moved. She buried her face in his side as she realized this was the closest they had been in months, this was the best moment they had shared in months. It was the first time in months that her husband, Oliver, seemed to have returned to her, even if it was just for one minute. She wanted that minute to last forever, but she wouldn't trade it for the world.
For Oliver, it was a moment of realization. Felicity in his arms, it felt so warm. She felt warm. And for the first time he felt like her husband, and he felt her happiness, could see it.
Felicity had a tear in her eye. Because she knew that it wouldn't last forever but she wanted it to. It felt like she had her Oliver back, and she wanted him to stay. One minute turned into two, two turned into five and neither stirred. Neither wanted it to end. Being like that made them feel like all of their problems had melted away in,each other's arms. "I missed this, I missed this so much." Felicity told him squeezing his middle. Oliver didn't respond but nodded understanding now what there was to be missed. Felicity repositioned herself slightly as an uncomfortable question suddenly emerged in her head. "Do you miss being the hood." She asked in a low voice. She didn't look up at him or even move, her tone sad and scared for the answer. But she wanted to know.
Oliver held her side tightly as he looked up to think. Felicity closed her eyes, if he said yes that meant that somehow the life he remembered was still better than his real one, she loathed for that answer. "No." She heard. No, he said no, he didnt. "At times like these, Felicity, I don't see how I could. I don't miss being the arrow. Being the arrow took away parts of my humanity, at least I thought it did. I don't think I ever wanted to be the arrow. I would have preferred a simple life if I could choose what I remember. One, just like this."
Felicity dug her head into his side at the response. She couldn't of asked for a better one. And Oliver meant it. He had loved Being the arrow, but it wasn't a life. Without it he could have a chance at a real one. And he liked the one he found himself in.
The day was ending and Diggle came up one more time to visit Oliver. Felicity of course was still there, half asleep with her head on the foot of his bed. He didn't know the last time she had slept in her own bed, or even slept at all.
He loudly cleared his throat in the doorway and Felicity bobbed her head up. "What? What? I'm good, just working." She announced loudly; she corrected her glasses and found two nurses staring at her and Diggle with a big grin on his face.
"Come on, it's time I took you home." He told her.
"What? No, no he just got over that horrible experiment they did on him, and they don't know if he was effected or what was effected." She paused gathering her thoughts. "He could wake up tonight." She stared at Dig with her doe eyes, believing every word she said. But Dig shook his head.
"He could wake up every night, but that doesn't mean you have to be here every night. You need to go home. He'll be here tomorrow. Come on, let me take you home." He said out stretching his hand. Felicity blinked her eyes sadly but placed her small, frail hand into his strong, reliable one. He brought her to her feet nodded to her and led her outside of the hospital room.
"I want him to wake up Diggle." She said sadly.
"So do I." He said looking back.
It's been a while since my last update, sorry, I've just been kinda lazy. And at the half way point I couldn't figure out where to go. But now I have a strong idea of what's going to happen in the next chapter so look forward to that. Please review and give me some ideas too, I want to know where you guys want me to take this. Follow and favorite the story if you want, maybe check out my other arrow story... if you want. Thank you for reading so far!