A/N: This is a quick note to my reader QuixoticHealer. I wanted to say a huge Thank you! for your lovely reviews on all if not most of my multi-chapter fics and also venturing into my Sherlolly collection. Your FF message box is not turned on, so I thought I would send you a note this way. xo

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Oliver leaned back into his chair and watched as Felicity lay a cool cloth across his mother's brow. He rubbed his thumb and fingers together as the feeling of her hand in his lingered. He wished he could keep ahold of the sensation forever. The jolting contact and her support...had been like a lightning strike through the ink dark skies of a storm. It had been unexpected, exhilarating and beautifully remarkable. She was remarkable. And she shouldn't be here.

She needed to be resting. He did not know what had been in Thomas' letter to her or if she had read it, but he did know he couldn't bear it if she became ill. It would be beyond his limits to handle. He was running on near empty. He hadn't had any sleep except for an erratic hour here and there.

His mother's room was now peacefully quiet after the bustle of earlier activity. Felicity had taken control the minute Oliver had agreed to allow her to help. New bed linens had been brought in and changed out. His mother was given a sponge bath and her fever drenched nightgown replaced.

The immense weight of responsibilities, Oliver had been carrying since news had come of Thomas' death, felt lighter. His eyes were growing heavier as he struggled to stay awake. He had to stay awake in case he was needed. He had to…

"Rest now, Oliver. I'm here," was whispered as soft fingers brushed down his cheek. The touch was warm and comforting as he drifted off.

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Oliver woke slightly disoriented. Where was he? His body was heavy and lethargic. He massaged a painful crick in his neck as he found Felicity sitting by his mother's bedside. And then he remembered.

"Felicity, forgive me, I feel asleep," Oliver said, with a voice low and gravelly from sleep as he stood up and walked towards her. His mother was still in a feverish state. Her body once again drenched in sweat and moving fitfully on the bed.

"There is nothing to forgive," Felicity replied as she turned to face him. A few strands of her blonde hair had come unraveled from her simple bun and lay along the delicate side of her neck. The urge to touch the soft tendrils was nearly overwhelming. Oliver knew he must look a fright in his exhaustion, but he had never seen Felicity, more beautiful. He looked down into her normally vibrant blue eyes to see them filled with worry.

"What is wrong?"

"...She isn't taking any broth, Oliver. Her restlessness is getting more frantic. For a while she was mumbling Tommy's name, but…"

"Yes?"

"Now, she's whispering your father's...Oliver, where is your father?"

Oliver's heart...broke. His mother needed his father and he wasn't there.

"I will bring him to her," surging anger and hurt making his words short and clipped before he walked out of the room and towards the library.

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Landon stood at the bottom of the stairs as Oliver made his way down. The man was uncanny in his job as the perfect butler.

"Do you have the library key?" Oliver asked brusquely as Landon fell into step with him.

"Yes, my lord," Landon replied, as he handed Oliver the key. The same kind of worry was reflected in the faithful servant's eyes as it had in Felicity's.

"My father will be 'receiving' today," Oliver stated sarcastically as he unlocked and opened the library door. He was met with darkness and a strong odor of whiskey. "Bring me some candles, and Landon?"

"My lord?"

"Have a hot bath readied in my father's room. A very, hot bath,"

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"Father?"

Light from the candelabra in Oliver's hand revealed a library filled with broken furniture, shattered glass on the floor and an untouched meal. Apparently Landon had been trying to take care of his lordship in so far as he was allowed.

The violence and neglect that was unleashed in the room was a surprise and yet, not one. Oliver had never seen his father display much emotion other than perhaps disappointment over the years, but the loss of a child...it warranted...it deserved...something, from the man.

"Father?" Oliver repeated as he stepped over debris and went further into the room.

"Leave me be!" was screamed from a tall wingback chair by the window. As Oliver walked closer he could make out the form of his father slumped in the chair with an empty liquor glass in his hand. His father looked horrible and the anger that had pushed Oliver into the room intensified.

His father squinted up at him and said with a heavy slur, "I killed him,"

"What are you talking about?"

"I killed him. I killed my...son,"

"Father, you're talking nonsense," Oliver replied impatiently. His father was obviously inebriated and didn't even recognize who he was talking to.

"...I could have...I should have given him the parsonage...he would be alive,"

Oliver didn't know what to say. Second sons were normally purchased a commission in the military or entered the church as their vocation.

"Thomas would not have chosen the church, Father,"

"What he wanted...it would not have mattered. If I had told him to...he would have. My sons follow my orders. They are good and honorable men…they do not question. They only do. Just as I did. Happiness and personal wants... do not matter. You study, till you can no longer see. You train and become perfect. You...seek and want acceptance from your father. Acknowledgement that you did well. That you were...loved...just once…"

Oliver could not believe his father's words. He was talking as if he knew what it was like...to be Oliver. Every resentment and longing that Oliver held towards his father...were ones, his father had held towards his own.

"I could have...saved him," his father whispered with a depth of loss, many times more powerful than a brother's. It was the agony of a parent who...loved.

Tears Oliver didn't know he had left...fell from his eyes. So many years of feeling he was not good enough...the loneliness of being set apart, as the heir...all the hurt; they fell with the tears and left behind, understanding.

His father...loved. He just didn't know how to show it.

####

Oliver set the candles on the nearby desk and kneeled down before his father's chair.

"Father, I need you now. We, need you now,"

"Wha?" the Earl said as he blinked through the haze of days of intoxication and grief.

"It's me, Oliver,"

"Oliver? Oh, Oliver...we've lost Thomas," his father whispered as he started to cry. "Thomas,"

"Shh, I know father. I need you to hear me," Oliver said as he cupped his father's face with his hands and met his eyes. He waited till the Earl's gaze focused on him before saying, "Mother needs you,"

"Moira? No, no, no, she must hate me. I killed Thomas," his father shook his head against Oliver's grip as his fear of facing his wife terrified him.

"Father, please listen to me, she's very, very sick,"

"Sick?"

"Please, she needs you. I...I need you," Oliver pleaded one more time as he waited and hoped that his words got through. He watched as so many emotions he never thought he'd see, fear, agony and then love, crossed his father's face.

The Earl gripped Oliver's shoulder and shook his head in agreement. Relief flooded through Oliver as his father then said, "Take me to her,"