Everyone else was going to bed.
Felicity was more than fine with that.
After the lights had gone out, they'd covered them the best they could with Tommy's black socks. Tommy knew that they didn't have night vision, so really…they were useless in the dark.
Most nights, she didn't sleep…or at least she waited until she was so exhausted that her body was forced to sleep. She would always dream about water and drowning and there had been a night that she'd woken up screaming… Felicity had felt terribly for scaring and waking up Tommy and Thea, but at least they knew… They'd tried to comfort her before she'd pretended to go back to bed and just lay there, terrified. She didn't want to do that anymore…
They'd left the wardrobe doors open, so she'd have cover if someone where to open the door and she could say she needed something from it. She slowly moved from bed and padded to the open wardrobe. She opened the book first to check the phone and realized that she hadn't even made sure it was on silent. There was absolutely no signal and she thought about searching the room for a signal, just in case, but they were in the middle of the ship and it was made of metal… Once she was certain she was going to be able to use it, she turned it completely off in order to conserve power. It was going to be the final piece to the plan, so she made sure it was tucked away until she needed it, just in case. It was the most vital and hardest to come by object in the plan.
Carefully, she set up the flashlight so that it would shine at the back of the wardrobe. With the contacts, she could see the panel much clearer. She reached back and ran her hand along it. Two screws, she didn't think it would take that long to remove them, even if she was using a knife instead of a proper screwdriver.
Felicity took her time using her makeshift screwdriver in order to remove the screws. One was a bit tighter than the other for some reason and took her so much longer to remove. But once the panel was removed, she realized she had a lot more on her plate than she'd original thought or hoped for. She thought it would be fairly straightforward. It would either have originally been an outlet for power, phone, or internet. There were more than three sets of wires…
"Crap," she muttered under her breath.
This was not going to work at all.
Felicity sighed and started to reach into the opening and pull out the wires to examine them closer. She wondered if she could make assumptions with the color-coded sheathing. Of course, some things were easier to differentiate than others…
This was going to be a long night.
She had to take her time, she knew, even if the call didn't happen tonight. If she hooked it up the wrong way then she could risk frying the whole phone and they'd be screwed. Felicity wasn't going to let this precious opportunity slip through their fingers…not when they were so close. It might just take longer than she'd hoped and she knew that she had to be okay with it.
At least for right now.
By the time she was having a hard time really keeping her eyes open, she was fairly sure she had the wires in the wall figured out. She pushed the ones that she wasn't going to be able to use back into the wall and pulled out the other two. She pulled clothes to cover the back of the wardrobe and stashed everything else under folded clothes before finally closing the doors and crawling into bed.
Felicity lay in her bed and just stared upward. She didn't want to sleep, she knew she needed to, but she feared dreaming… She didn't want dreams filled with nightmares of drowning. So, she lay there and thought about her favorite guys. She thought about Oliver on the salmon ladder and she thought about Diggle and his sweet and kind words.
They're going to come for us, she reminded herself.
. . .
"You going to be okay?" Tommy questioned.
"Yeah," Felicity replied far too quickly. She noticed the worry in his face. He'd woken her up for breakfast because he wanted to make sure that she ate before they left for a bit and it had scared her. She'd screamed and moved away from his touch. It had taken her a good ten minutes to fully calm down.
"I can stay—"
"No, go," she insisted. "Someone might as well get out of this room…you two should get some sunlight if you can…"
Tommy frowned at her. "You need more sleep…"
"I'm going to go through and reorganize my wardrobe," she said for the sake of the audio recorders. She needed some reason to be in the wardrobe later for an extended period of time. "Organization is relaxing for me…"
Tommy pulled her towards him and half hugged her before kissing her forehead. "Maybe we'll find a new game," he teased with a small smile.
Felicity nodded and played along. "A new game would be nice."
"We'll keep an eye out," Thea said cheerily as the door opened. They knew they were coming because they'd been given a five-minute warning by one of the guards.
Why Merlyn wouldn't let them even have a clock, Felicity didn't know. She was certain that it was just another way for him to keep control. That seemed to be one of the things he was all about…control…control over everything. He really wasn't appreciating his own children resisting his control… He was going to have to get over it though, she thought. They were going to resist and they were going to go home.
. . .
As soon as they were out the door, Felicity started to talk to herself, both wardrobe doors open. She kept talking about clothes and occasionally moving to other sections to make it look like she was really tidying things up. In fact, she'd figured out how to rig the cell phone to the correct wiring.
She had one chance.
Or at least that was what she kept telling herself. She had no idea if the phone would fry once she made the call or really if it would even go through. It was a chance, but it was one that she knew that they had to take. One that had to be taken now because she was sure that enough time had gone by that Thea and Tommy would be returning soon.
Taking in a deep breath and steadying her hands, she dialed the number that she knew by heart. She'd gone back and forth about whom to call: Oliver or Diggle. It came down to the fact that she needed to hear his voice… Felicity kept telling herself that if she heard him say her name then she could be strong enough until he got there.
It rang…and rang…and rang…
Tears fell from her eyes as she feared voicemail would pick up. She knew that she'd still be able to hear his voice, but it wouldn't be the same and that wouldn't tell her if he'd actually check it…
"I need you," she whispered as she held the phone up to her ear. "Pick up…"
"Hello?"
Felicity just soaked in his voice. How she'd missed that voice and she couldn't stop from crying before speaking.
"Hello? Who is this?"
"Oliver, I—"
She'd taken too long. She'd been too suspicious…or Tommy and Thea were back. Either way, the door was opened, before she could even turn her head to look at what was going on, she was being hauled backwards. The phone fell from her hands as she screamed for whomever it was to stop.
"Get off of her!" Thea screamed and suddenly they were all on the floor in a heap.
"Phone!" one of the guards must have shouted. Felicity had turned her head just long enough to see them yanking it from the wall and stomping it to death.
He'd picked up, she thought.
Merlyn hauled her up to her feet and shoved her against the nearest wall. "WHO did you call?" he bellowed.
"Who do you THINK she was calling?" Tommy asked.
Felicity watched from the floor as Merlyn turned towards his son and punched him. It was enough to knock Tommy to the floor. He loomed over him for a moment, before he turned back to her. He marched over to her and Felicity closed her eyes and curled herself up in order to try to protect herself as much as possible.
The kicks weren't what really hurt, but rather Thea's cries. He paused for a moment and she peeked out long enough to see that Merlyn was gripping Thea's arm in one hand as he continued to kick at her ribs.
"Let me go!" Thea cried out. "You're hurting me!"
"Dad! Stop!" she heard Tommy call.
"She's poisoned you both against me!" Merlyn shouted. "Everything was going to be perfect! We were going to be a perfect family! Have a second chance at it all! And she—"
"She's your daughter!" Tommy shouted. Merlyn stopped for a moment. "Look at her! You're kicking your OWN daughter! If you love Felicity, then you wouldn't hurt her like that… And you wouldn't be hurting Thea!"
Felicity looked up at him and it seemed like a cloud was lifting. He was suddenly looking between her and Thea. Felicity could see Tommy now; he was pulling Thea from Merlyn's hold and positioning her behind him as he tried to move Merlyn away from her.
"But now Oliver Queen—" Merlyn started to ramble.
"We WANT to go home," Tommy told him gently. "This isn't LIVING… You HAVE to SEE that."
"We were going to start over—"
"We don't WANT to…"
Merlyn just stared at them all as he slowly backed out of the room. Felicity could see his face change…different emotions taking him over… Guilt, anger, upset, confusion… The door was slammed shut and the whole room felt like it shook a bit.
"Are you okay?!" Thea asked as she and Tommy helped her up.
Felicity accepted their help and got to her feet only to then grab her side. She realized that when she curled up, she apparently did so in a way that the same side was injured and this time she was certain that she'd done a little more than just bruised her ribs.
"I'll live," she managed to get out without giving away too much, though she saw how Tommy was looking at her. She sighed as she stared at him; a bruise was forming over his eye. "You're going to have a black eye," she told him and felt so guilty about it. If she'd had finished it before…been quieter…done something different…
"Good," he replied.
"Good?!" Thea exclaimed.
"Maybe he'll finally realize that he's hurting us," Tommy said. He looked over Thea's arm and sighed. He held it up and Felicity could see what he could see. The faint bruising of fingertips on her arm, whether they'd darken or not, she wasn't sure. She didn't like it though, she really felt like she'd screwed up. "How about your ribs?"
She cringed. She knew that she couldn't lie, well shouldn't lie…not after they promised. Felicity frowned. "I don't know how many are broken…"
"You have to be careful though, can't they like poke into your organs if you're not careful?" Thea asked.
"Cheery," Tommy commented.
"What?"
"She's right though, you need to be careful, especially now."
They were all quiet for a moment as they all settled onto their beds. Felicity tried to find the best position so she didn't feel like her ribs were trying to kill her… Nothing seemed to ease it. So, she just settled with sitting with her back against the wall.
"Oliver picked up," she finally said.
"You heard him?" Thea asked instantly.
Felicity nodded. "If he thought we were dead before, he has to know now…"
"Which means my dad is probably going to try to move us…" Tommy spoke up. "So, Oliver better hurry up and find us."
Time was running out.
And it wasn't on their side.
. . .
TBC…