Hey guys: I really appreciate all of the reviews and messages you've sent me. I've been undergoing a few treatments the past few days that have helped a lot. Also, I've gotten back into the groove of writing so I'm really hoping to update more regularly. I wrote a lot today and I've finished through ch. 18! Just need to edit and such. I also jumped ahead a little a wrote a scene for a later chapter that had been bouncing around in my head and UGH THE FEELS. Just wait. We're all gonna be a mess by the end of this fic, me especially.
The lullaby is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
As always, please review. Love, Hannah
"I never thought I'd be sitting in this chair. You know I'm really not good at sitting and waiting for anything. I know you'd tell me to be patient, but you know I'm an act first, ask questions later kind of person. Or at least I was, until I met you."
Oliver reached forward and slid his hand under Felicity's. "I promise I'll pay attention from now on. I won't ever let something this big slip past me ever again."
He looked up into her face. It was still swollen, the bruises having deepened in the day since he'd carried her into the emergency room wrapped in Diggle's wool blanket. There was a small incision covered in a square of white gauze at the base of her throat where they'd removed her tracheotomy three hours ago. From beneath her hospital gown peeked the corner of a bandage that stretched from her sternum to her hip. The nurse would be due in to change it soon and to check the infection.
A monitor behind Oliver beeped steadily, the peaks and valleys of Felicity's ventricular rhythm displayed at even intervals alongside a handful of numbers indicating her blood-oxygen content and her blood pressure. There was no number there, however, to indicate her suffering. Jane had said it would be immense. The pain of infection and a flail chest often did not fit on the standard pain scale.
And that was why she hadn't opened her eyes yet. Jane had said it was the body's way of protecting itself. With a caved chest, a surgically rebroken arm, and 30% of the skin on her abdomen and torso carved away, Jane insisted it was better that she remained unconscious. They would have sedated her even if she had woken up.
This did little to comfort Oliver as he reached up to cradle Felicity's face in his palm. The others had left an hour ago, leaving both of them with some privacy. Not that they needed it. Felicity couldn't hear anything he was saying, or feel any of the gentle touches Oliver was now painting her skin with.
Oliver was surprised by his gentleness. He had never been a gentle human being, even before the island. Throughout his life, he had been one to grip too hard and crush, or not grip hard enough and let fly. He lived in extremes. It was all or nothing for him, no nuance or sliding scale. His relationships since returning from Lian Yu were brief, burning hard and fast and falling hard. His family was now shredded because of his choices, father and mother dead, sister a newly trained apprentice to an assassin. No, there was very little that was soft or gentle in his life.
Except for Felicity. She was tender and mild, but fierce and devoted. She was the sliding scale, an amalgam of traits that to him seemed irreconcilable in a person. And yet, here she was. When he'd seen only darkness inside of him, she'd brushed away the despair like leaves in the autumn and pulled forth a light he'd never known was there. She'd looked inside of him, down into the darkest recesses of his being and extracted every ounce of wonder, joy, and peace he'd never expected to encounter in himself.
She was the kind of person who could cradle a newborn kitten in her hands, tenderly and carefully, able to preserve that fragile life, but then also have the gall to stab Slade Wilson in the neck with a syringe while trapped by Wilson's strength. Oliver had always been in awe of her. The emotions roiling within him had been threatening to overwhelm his mind ever since he had first handed her a bullet-ridden laptop in the Queen Consolidated IT department.
As Oliver withdrew his hand from Felicity's cheek, his finger hooked her oxygen tubing slightly and pulled the cannula from her nose. Standing, he leaned over her, gently adjusting the tubing so that the oxygen flowed again into her lungs. He cupped both sides of her face as gently as he could, aware of the cracked bone beside her eye.
Even with the shades of bruising, swelling, and abrasions, she looked so peaceful. The pain that had wracked her body when he'd first held her in his arms 24 hours before was gone, at least for the time being. Leaning forward, Oliver let his forehead barely graze her own.
"Thank you for not leaving me behind," Oliver whispered holding the two of them still for several moments.
As he lowered himself back into the chair beside Felicity's bed, he noticed Jane standing silently in the doorway.
"I know she can't hear me," Oliver said quietly, feeling self conscious.
"The jury's out on that one. Some research suggests coma patients can hear some of what's going on around them." Oliver flinched at the word coma. Jane looked sympathetic. "In any case, it certainly can't hurt."
Jane gave him a sad smile before moving to Felicity's side. She checked the IV running into Felicity's central line on her neck and hung a new bag of antibiotics.
"Has the doctor said anything else?" Oliver knew that there wouldn't be any news since an hour ago when he'd last asked, but the silence felt like a weighted blanket on the room.
"No. But I need to change her bandages, dear. I'm afraid, since you're not family, I can't allow you to stay. Privacy rules and all that. I'm very sorry." Jane genuinely did look sorry. She knew that since Oliver had been allowed to return to Felicity's side when she'd left surgery six hours ago, he had not left her.
"Why don't you go down to the cafeteria. I can tell you haven't eaten in several days. Check with the nurses' station. They have vouchers I think." She smiled at him kindly. "I promise I won't leave her until you get back. It'll take me at least half an hour."
Oliver thought briefly about protesting. If it had been any other nurse besides Jane, he would have refused to leave, but she had won over his entire team in only about three minutes of conversation, himself included. Somehow, in Team Arrow's darkest hour, Jane had parted the storm of fear and terror to calm them all. Oliver had thought several times since meeting her that Jane had certainly chosen the perfect profession. The comfort she brought was immeasurable. Felicity knew her, and Oliver was inclined to trusts her.
With a silent nod, Oliver stood, wiping his palms on his jeans. He leaned forward and kissed Felicity's unbruised temple.
He whispered, "I'll be back soon. Don't go anywhere."
As he departed, Jane followed him with her eyes before turning back to Felicity with a smile. "You've got one of the good ones now, huh? It's like I told you last time. The right man will love every part of you."
Jane slowly unbuttoned the sleeves to Felicity's gown and folded it down. She worked slowly and carefully. At Jane's suggestion, the attending surgeon had called in their plastic surgeon to assist in the debridement of the infection on Felicity's chest and stomach. The plastic surgeon had used tiny delicate stitches and the utmost care to slowly piece what remained of her healthy skin back together. If the hospital was careful with its bandaging and other care, it was quite possible they could limit to a great degree the scarring from her ordeal.
Carefully applying the antibacterial lotion to the skin, Jane then replaced the bandage across most of Felicity's torso. She leaned back and looked into her patient's face for a moment and couldn't help the shuddering sob that rose in her throat.
In Jane's mind, Felicity Smoak was the last person on earth who deserved this kind of cruelty. Even in her days at the hospital five years ago, when she was still learning how to smile and face the world again, Felicity had touched every nurse and doctor she encountered. She'd learned who had kids or pets, who loved to paint or which nurse had just had a grandchild. Everyday she would ask about so and so's son and how his science fair had gone, or the charge nurse's garden and how it was surviving with the over abundance of rain.
Yes, Felicity had reached outside of herself, even in the midst of the worst days of her life, to touch those around her.
"You're an incredible woman, Felicity. And you deserve an incredible man." Jane leaned forward to whisper in Felicity's ear, "Please don't make him wait too long. He's not the only one who wants to see those blue eyes."
Leaning back, Jane reached down and began redoing the rest of the bandages on Felicity's body. As she worked, she hummed a lullaby her mother had once taught her before she'd died early in Jane's childhood. Drawing a deep breath, she began to sing.
"I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew no where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroken;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend."
Oliver stood, his back to the wall beside the door in the hallway. He hadn't even considered going down to the cafeteria several floors below. The idea of being that far away from Felicity ever again made his gut twist into tight knots. And now, as he smiled, eyes closed, listening to Nurse Jane sing to Felicity, he was glad he had stayed put. He was glad he'd made the decision to never leave.