Author: Some1FoundMe

Title: The Long Way Home

Rating: T

Summary: AU Felicity Smoak-Lance hasn't been back to her home on Star Island in five years. She has avoided it at all costs. She has made her life in Coast City, settling in at a job she enjoys with a man she could someday love. But when she makes the trek home at her mother's request, everything she thought she knew is unraveled.

A/N: As the support for this story keeps pouring in, I'm incredibly grateful. Seriously, you all are the best. Also, the Olicity conversation is finally here! Don't fret, this is just the beginning but I hope that it's at least a good start!

Chapter Eleven

"Hi."

"Hey."

"What are you doing out here?" Oliver asked.

Felicity tried not to watch the way the water beaded on his chest and rolled down his abdomen before being absorbed by the fabric of his low-slung swim trunks. She really did try but she was sitting and he was standing right there and her eyes didn't want to go any higher for some reason.

"Felicity? Are you alright?"

She nodded, swallowing hard and meeting his eyes as he bent to retrieve his towel. He scrubbed it over his hair before drying his chest and arms. There was a tattoo on his left pectoral, just over his heart, and she recognized it as the Marine Corps emblem. But it wasn't the tattoo that held her attention. It was the myriad scars that marred his skin. There would be a story behind each of them, she thought, and she desperately wanted to hear those stories. At the same time, the thought made her stomach roil.

"You sure you're okay?" he asked again, sitting beside her.

Oliver moved to pull his sweatshirt over his head but her hand found its way to the tattoo under his arm, her fingers tracing the letters slowly. He froze.

"Felicity…"

His voice was strained as she withdrew her hand and he yanked the material down quickly, covering his torso.

"How long have you had that?" she asked.

He lifted his shoulder in a half shrug, "Long enough."

Felicity stared at him, waiting for a real answer to her question, but he didn't grace her with one. He drew his knees up, resting his arms there as his gaze lingered on the water in front of them. He was older, she realized, and not just in years. He had aged physically, sure, but she knew that the man beside her had had years added to his soul. Whatever he had lived through, it had changed him.

She shook her head, scoffing at herself, and mirrored his position.

"What?"

"Oliver, where have you been? What – what happened to you?" she asked.

He tensed beside her.

"You wouldn't understand."

She sighed, "Then explain it to me, Oliver. I'm here now, whether you want me to be or not, so why can't you talk to me?"

When he turned to her with a scowl on his face, she drew back, putting as much distance between them as she could without standing.

"You honestly think I don't want you here? That I didn't want to see you?"

"What am I supposed to think? You asked everyone - our friends, my parents, everyone - not to tell me you were home! How was I supposed to take that?"

"I wanted to tell you myself!" he snapped at her, "I needed to see you, Felicity. A phone call wasn't enough. I – I thought you deserved more than that."

She took a staggering breath and felt some of the ache around her heart abate. She softened her tone, drawing in her loud voice and lowering her defenses.

"Then why didn't you, Oliver? I know that my mom gave you my address so why didn't you… why didn't you come?"

The mask he'd shone her since she'd arrived home slipped back into place and she watched his fists clench, his knuckles white. When he didn't acknowledge that he'd heard her, her temper flared.

"Damn you, Oliver, why won't you –"

"I was going to come, Felicity! I was on the fucking ferry, okay? I was ready to come to Coast City to see you but your dad talked me out of it!"

Her heart was suddenly in her throat, making it difficult to breathe.

"Why would he do that?"

Oliver sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face in a gesture that spoke of fatigue.

"He told me about Ray. He told me that you were living together and that you seemed pretty happy. He didn't want me to go to Coast City thinking that you'd been waiting for me. He didn't want me to be surprised by what I would've found if I'd come looking."

Her voice shook as she asked, "He told you not to come?"

"No. The opposite. He urged me to go. He wanted me to find you, thought you deserved to know that I was … but I couldn't do it. I couldn't see you with someone else."

Tears burned her cheeks as they fell and Oliver's hand was suddenly there, wiping them away.

"I'm a coward when it comes to you, Flick, how can you not see that?"

A sob escaped her and she curled into herself, drawing her knees tighter to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. If she wasn't careful, she would throw herself into his arms. There was too much that still needed to be fixed. They hadn't even cracked the surface of the issues that kept them apart.

"I need to know, Oliver. As much or as little as you're willing to tell me, I need to know. Where have you been? What happened to you?"

His hand fell away from her face.

"I can't talk about it. Not to you. I – I just can't."

She bit her lip.

"Sara thinks that you were in jail. That conversation with my mom, you told her you were a prisoner. It was worse than jail, wasn't it?"

He nodded, his eyes shifting back to the restless ocean. His chest rose and fell rapidly, a sign of the anxiety that he felt as she dug her heels in.

"You were a POW? You were… you were held captive? A prisoner of war?"

His response was a single nod but it drew another sob from her. Her voice was strained as she continued.

"How long, Oliver?"

He shrugged, "From what I've been told, roughly five years."

Her stomach churned, bile burning her throat, and she bit back the urge to lose her breakfast. The scars on his body told a story of the torture he had endured. For five years, he had been in hell and they hadn't known. They had assumed that he was dead. She was certain that what he had survived was far worse than death.

She reached for his hand, lacing her fingers with his, and squeezed.

"What else did Sara hear?"

She laughed humorlessly, "More than you think. She's better than a tape record. She told me that you talk to my mom a lot. That you talk to her about me."

"I do."

"Do you talk to anyone else? What about Thea and Roy? She's worried about you."

Oliver shook his head, "I'm fine."

"I want to believe you, Oliver, but being alive and being fine aren't the same thing," she said quietly, "And I know that you're here but – but you won't talk to me and I don't know what to do. You told my mom that you thought about me a lot, all the time. You told her… you told her that you love me."

He sighed, his eyes still on the sea, and whispered, "I did."

Fresh tears welled in her eyes and she squeezed his hand. She wanted him to look at her. She wanted him to see her reassuring smile, to know that her love for him hadn't weakened in the time he'd been away. She needed him to understand.

"I missed you so much, Oliver. My whole world fell apart when I thought – when Thea told me you were gone. I couldn't breathe without you."

She choked on a gasp, her shoulders shaking, and he finally allowed her to see his eyes. Her own sorrow was reflected back at her and the sight of it only made her cry harder.

He reached for her, his cold hands clasping her face as he rested his forehead against her.

"Please don't cry, Flick," he murmured, "Please."

She shook her head, "It hurt so much being here without you. Everything – everything reminded me of you, of us. I couldn't leave my house, Oliver. It was like my life ended the moment you were taken from me. It took Thea and Iris weeks to talk me back from the ledge. I – I didn't know what to do."

He drew her into his side and she found herself drawing strength from him. He was solid and warm against her, reminding her that he was in fact real, that the man she had thought she'd lost had come back from the dead. And for the first time since discovering he was home, she felt a sense of relief. The confusion and anxiety she'd been overcome with since stepping foot on Star Island less than a week earlier melted away.

"Do you remember the last time that I saw you?"

"The night of the prom. I'll never forget that night, Oliver."

"It was my birthday."

She nodded, "I remember."

"I was so angry at you," he told her.

She set her chin on his shoulder.

"Why?"

He scoffed, "Seriously? Felicity, you said no."

She drew back and sighed heavily, "I was seventeen, Oliver! I was getting ready to graduate, prepping for MIT, and I – I wasn't ready! I was scared!"

It was a conversation that had yet to take place. Almost a decade later and they'd never really talked about it. They hadn't broken up after she'd refused his proposal but he had left for Fort Bragg the next morning and when she'd talked to him on the phone a few days later, he'd acted like it had never happened. They both had. He had never asked her to explain why she'd refused.

"I wasn't asking you to marry me right that moment," he said sharply, "I didn't ask you to run away with me, Felicity. I was prepared to wait. We would've had to. Six weeks after that night, I left on my first deployment. We had years to plan a wedding. I would've waited forever for you. I thought you knew that. I asked that night because I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you and I knew – I knew there was a chance I'd die over there and you'd never know how much I loved you!"

Her throat was tight and her eyes burned. His words cut her deep.

"I was scared, Oliver."

He looked away.

"You don't think I was scared, too? I wasn't much older than you and I was heading into a warzone. I never thought you'd say no."

"We were too young," she muttered.

"I loved you. And I knew what I wanted."

She drew in a sharp breath, "I loved you, too. I – I still do."

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. She recognized the physical manifestation of his frustration and it made her pulse race. She wanted him to tell her that he still loved her. She needed to hear him say it.

"Don't say that, Flick."

She frowned, "Why not?"

"Fuck! Because it isn't fucking fair! You can't tell me that you love me when you're here with someone else!"

He stood up then, grabbing his towel and his shoes. She didn't get a chance to tell him about Ray as he showed her his back.

"Go home, Felicity," he called over his shoulder.

"Oliver –"

"You don't know what you're saying. You came here with Ray and I'm not going to talk to you about this until he's gone."

She almost called out to him and demanded that he come back. She almost told him in that moment that she'd already broken up with Ray, that he was probably in his car at that very second headed back to Coast City. But shock kept her quiet as she watched him retreat.

It wasn't until he was out of sight that she realized he'd called her by her nickname. He had called her Flick. She knew what it meant. The young man she had loved all those years ago was still in there. He was buried under years of pain, of unimaginable anguish, but he was there and she would do whatever she could to bring him back.