So here it is and I'll admit I decided to go a little easy on poor felicity. I was considering a knock down drag out fight but they're not there yet. A lot more conversation than I'm comfortable with but it's kind of hard to have a talk without conversation xxx
Don't worry Diggle's joining the party very soon but first we have to find out just a little bit more info.
She knew this would be the heart of many of their arguments to come and honestly she did have an answer for it but it sounded so much more like a pathetic deflection, so she closed her eyes took a deep breath and answered.
"I honestly did, earlier on." taking a deep breath " I'd been gone 2 months and I was at the treatment centre and I'd just finished a group session where I talked about Robert for the first time and I finally felt something. I picked up the phone and rang you but when you answered, well I think you were either asleep or drunk but do you know what you said."
Oliver clearly paled because even though it was all those years ago he remembers. " You said, Sarah, you better be on your way because I want you in my bed and I want it now!" He had often wondered who he'd been speaking to that night because he'd gotten no answer simply what sounded like muffled tears and the disconnection sound. Yes, he'd both hoped and feared that it had been her but he never really believed it was. "I will admit, it didn't help my emotional state. You were back together with the girl that you swore you'd never go back to and there I was struggling to get out of bed and you'd already moved on."
"But, I hadn't. I mean I did but I hadn't."
"Look I understand, she always had a hold over you and I could understand it. I just wish you would have waited, even though I gave you no reason to. It was just really hard to find out that you didn't miss me as much as I missed you!" The tremble that she heard in her voice she knew gave away how raw and stretched out her emotions were.
Shaking his head but before he could say anything she continued. "And then when I finally got out and was starting to plan my future I got that god damn intervention order saying that I'd been harassing you and that you'd had the courts banning me from visiting, calling, contacting you or any many of your family."
"But I didn't take out any such order!" she could see his frustration
"Don't you think I know that NOW." taking a calming breath "No, I'm guessing you didn't but one was taken out on your behalf I'm afraid. I even fought it in court and a lawyer showed up saying how my actions were irreparably damaging your new relationship, Laurel can show you the court transcript it was in the folder I assumed she read."
"But, how?"
"Malcolm, I guess he managed to buy off or threaten someone."
"I swear I didn't and the thing with Sarah was just a couple of really, really drunken nights. She's got a girlfriend now. I was just sad and angry." He said looking just a bit cute and more than a little broken. " You never mentioned that call in your emails."
"No, i'll admit it hurt too much when I first started sending them, infact when I sent the first few I expected to have the 'The Old Bill' show up at my door but they didn't. I may have hacked into the database to find that the order had been rescinded about 2 months earlier. It didn't seem important, you had Isobelle and I had only myself to blame"
"And you had Connor." Oliver said, sure it was deflection and he knew it.
"Oliver, Connor and I are not now or have we ever been a couple."
Getting a little angry now, "Felicity, I've seen the bloody photo's."
"What Photo's?"
"When you hadn't come back after 5 years I was curious, I hired a private investigator and he took some very graphic photos of what I now assume was of you and Connor."
"Please tell me you kept them!"
"Why, do you want a souvenir?"
"Bloody hell Oliver, don't you get it. There is nothing between me and Connor, there's not now and there never was. In the last 10 years I've gone with a total of 5 guys, all with really sweet, really boring guys who never made it to the 2 month anniversary. 2 of which never made it past the first date."
"So it was one of them then."
"Oliver, I didn't date anyone till 3 years ago and quite frankly I don't appreciate your attitude. You couldn't even wait till I took out my stitches, before you moved on."
"I didn't move on, I just got drunk!"
"Fine, whatever. But if you really have those photo's, I would like to see them because I'm betting I can prove they're fake."
"I burned them, OK! I couldn't stand seeing you with any other man."
"Ok, Oliver. I just need to know 2 things. Did they show my front or my back? and what colour was my hair?"
"What do you mean what colour was your hair, it was blonde like now. The photo's showed your front, your back and all sorts of other places that I recognised but didn't need to see on another man's body." Running his hand through his hair and giving her a look that told her the level of his frustration, why was it that she could still read him like a book.
"Was I Scarred?" Felicity asked not wanting to look him in the eyes.
"No. You weren't." Oliver said suddenly quiet. "You weren't."
"Oliver, there is two things you need to know. 1 - those photo's were definitely fake but may have actually been of me and 2 - I can prove it." Without over thinking what she was about to do she grabbed her t-shirt at the waist and pulled it over her head.
Oliver, couldn't believe this turn of events one minute he and Felicity were arguing about the legitimacy of the photo's and the next she was pulling her t-shirt over her head. At first he was confused and then he saw them, dark pink raised scars that covered her entire torso, starting at her jeans and going all the way to where just below her collar bones. The bulk of which decorating her midriff in collection of Zig Zag lines, some narrow, some not and a few of them were covered by her dark sports bra.
"So did my stomach look like this?"
"No. God No, I had no idea. Malcolm told Tommy all your scars had healed."
"Can, we just agree from here on in that nothing that man says is true and agree that I was an idiot to run away."
Nodding and without realising what he was doing Oliver found himself standing next to Felicity reaching out to touch the scars on her body. Felicity looked unsure but she didn't back away, when he touched the largest scar across her stomach her only reaction was a sudden gasp while looking him in the eyes.
"I never saw them, you know. I never understood why you wouldn't let me see. Were they much worse?"
"Before I left you mean?"
"Yeah. Do they hurt?"
"When I left some had started to heal but a couple were still weeping wounds and I hated them? they were a constant reminder of how I failed Robert. So yes, they were worse but I got some great cream in fact many of the smaller ones are gone as for if they hurt the answer is not all the time. It's more like phantom pain, like pins and needles than anything else. At least that's what my doctor calls it, generally if I push myself in the gym too hard or if I'm hot or cold they act up. But no, the pain's pretty well gone, but the scars remain."
Oliver's fingers continued to run over the scars on her stomach till she brought her hand down and rested it on his. "I didn't take my top off to make you feel guilty Oliver, I took it off to show you that if those photo's were real. I think you may have noticed these don't you think?"
"Yeah, I'm sorry I shouldn't have touched you."
"Oliver, I don't mind you touching me. Geese, what I mean is it's ok to touch me, no that's not what I meant either." looking away from him, he could see the blush rising up her chest like it used to, "Oliver, what I'm saying is this. I understand why you had to feel them, the scars I mean. Not my body, you don't need to feel my body. You've already done that like so many times. " Bringing her hand to her forehead in frustration at her obvious gaff. "3,2,1. Oliver, I understand the need to feel the scars. it makes them real. " she said walking back towards the kitchen and that's when he saw it. On her right shoulder blade was a tattoo that definitely hadn't been there 10 years ago. It wasn't large tattoo but it was beaultiful.
"What's that?"
Spinning around "What's what?"
"On your back, the tattoo. I thought you didn't like needles atleast that's what you told me when I got mine." he says smiling
"Oh, yeah. I kind of forget about that. I got it on Roberts 5th birthday. I was in Hong Kong, I was a little reflective as you can imagine. A friend of mine who was there was going to get a
tattoo to remember his daughter, she had died in a car accident. He had a photo of her and he dragged me along, I'd told him about Robert, he'd told me about his daughter. He was actually the one of the only 3 people I've talked to about him, in the last 10 years. He said I should get one too, but of course I didn't have a photo, and an ultra sound picture would not have been helpful. So I chose the Phoenix. It just seemed fitting. "
"So that's how you knew the photo's were fake?"
"Well, I knew I wasn't having sex with anyone especially Connor. Oliver, I don't know how to say this but I think the photo's were of us. Not of me and some other guy."
"I think I would have recognised my own body, Felicity."
"Yes, but how much of the mans body was visible. Let me guess, they were mostly of me."
"How'd you know?"
"They sound like the photo's that Malcolm shoved in my face, shortly before we found out I was pregnant."
"What do you mean?"
"He tried to make out that you'd organised to have them taken and sold them to a trashy mag. Malcolm of course had brought them to save my dignity!"
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Oliver, my step father. Handed me a folder, with photo's of our naked bodies in what I can tell you was definitely reckless abandon. Then he told me that your other girl friend had sold them. Let, me say this once and only once. I trusted you with my heart and soul, that meant I knew he was lying. You didn't do it, did Helena. Well now that we all know she was a true blue lunatic. Sure she did it, but Oliver I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to have to
deal with his mind games. I trusted you and had they made the press, sure you would've found out but otherwise I was happy to save you that embarrassment."
It was then that Felicity obviously remembered that she was actually standing in the dining room in just her sports bra and jeans.
" Right, so as you can see my upper body's not quite like you remember. So for one thing, I'm definitely not having sex with anyone, not that you needed to know that and 2 if I was I would definitely be wearing a top."
Oliver didn't miss the shame that crossed Felicity's face as she put the shirt back on or her little comment about wearing a top during sex. Did she really believe she looked that bad, because in his eye's she certainly didn't. The scar's tore at his heart because he knew she got them because of him but no they certainly weren't ugly. In truth she only seemed more beautiful to him, stronger yet more fragile at the same time. Gone was her naïve light and here stood a wiser more well rounded woman. He knew how angry he still was with her, but it was slowly being replaced by an equally appropriate level of self loathing because just as she had stayed away from him for 10 years, he had stayed away from her. Sure Malcolm had a lot to answer for but they'd all let him do it. By being to afraid to face each other they'd lost each other. There was a lot of blame to go around and he knew it, but now he noticed that she had gotten all quiet and that scared him. Quiet reflection that was his thing, though if you asked Felicity or Thea or any of the people in the other room they'd probably call it him being 'Grumpy Oliver' and maybe they were right but no way hell was he ever going to admit that to them.
"Oliver, there's a few things you should know about Connor and I. He was my friend and now he's not but we were never lovers and most definitely we were never engaged."
"but why you made it sound like you spent all you free time with him in some of those emails it really sounded like you were completely smitten."
"Smitten, you're using the word Smitten. Who are you Oliver Queen? and what happened to the guy I knew, but wait don't answer that, it's one of those questions that will lead to tears and anger and maybe some broken glass. So all I'll say in regard to those emails I never lied about anything, everything I said I did in them it was all true but what I left out was just as important as what I put in. Connor and I may have been getting close to a relationship but we hadn't actually made it that far yet. I wasn't trying to give you the wrong impression because I honestly felt that he and I may have had a future, right up until the point we came through the entrance to town. "
"Why what changed?"
"I was home and I knew there was no way I could leave again. And Connor he made his feelings on town very clear."
"So you what did you tell him?"
"I was going to lead with the Olde it's not you, It's me. Then I was going to explain that we had all been misled about a lot of things which was going to take a long time to figure out but then I walked through the door."
"What happened when you walked through the door?"
"you mean apart from the fact that he was yelling and screaming at my staff. His bags were at the door fully loaded with cash and he was actually trying to kick the door in to my office. Lets just say It's was definitely him."
"So he's gone?"
"Oh, I had his ass arrested. Lance came and put the cuffs on him personally."
Chuckling Oliver looked up and said, "that's definitely going to put a dampener on his feelings?"
"Don't feel too sorry for him, I'm pretty sure he's been working with your girlfriend."
