"No."
"Go."
"NO."
"GO."
"Noooo"
"Goooo"
"For the last time Felicity, I am not going to leave you. You are in the hospital," Oliver fought, not wanting to go in case something happened.
Felicity groaned, "Oliver, you are being ridiculous. Nothing is going to happen while your home for a night, and if something did happen, it's not like you're a doctor. I am surrounded twenty-four seven by medical professionals and if anything happens, which it won't, they will immediately run to my room and fix it. So, I'm not asking you when I say, go."
Oliver thought for a moment, trying to think of something to fight back with, but when his mind blanked, he sighed and said, "Fine, I'll leave in a few hours, I'll grab some food on the way home, make sure to take a shower, and get William in bed by ten. You happy?" Oliver and Felicity decided that the loft was the best place for everyone to stay, especially because Felicity wouldn't be there, so they wouldn't have to confront all their problems at once while she was in the hospital and they were having to help William with all of his new adjustments
Felicity shook her head and said, "No, no, no. You will leave right now. You will take William back to school shopping because he told me yesterday that his Adventure time backpack's zippers were broken so he wants this cool Minecraft one he saw at target. Plus, he needs a long list of things like pencils and binders, I have the list right here." She said while pulling out a long piece of paper and handing it to Oliver. "Then, you will take him to a nice restaurant for dinner, because I know the only thing you two have eaten in the last two weeks has been fast food. Finally, you will have him in bed by nine, because he must get up at seven to be at his new school tomorrow morning. Plus, don't forget that I made the adjustments to his uniform and they are sitting in the bag on the chair."
Oliver smiled at her as he made his way over to her and placed a kiss gently on her head, then said, "Felicity, I love that you are being so amazing about making sure William adjusts to his new school properly, but your number one priority right now should be trying to be as stress free as possible."
Felicity leaned her head against Oliver's chest and grumbled, "I would if you would listen to a word I said."
Oliver laughed as he started to make his way out the door while saying, "I got it, Shopping, healthy dinner, bed by 9."
Felicity remembered something as he was making his way out so she shouted, "And don't forget, we're finding out the gender tomorrow, so be back by 2."
Since Felicity had enough money from her company, she was able to get an amazing private room that had two beds in it, so more often than not, William found himself sleeping on a hospital bed, and spending a lot of his days reading comic books, watching television, and being tutored by Felicity to make sure he was caught up with all the other students at the private school he was being sent to. He hadn't really had time to decorate his room, as he had maybe spent three days there, but he and Felicity had already drawn out the layout of his sweet crib. They even started ordering stuff online, because Felicity didn't want William to be upset that his life went from normal to living in a hospital room with two people he doesn't know all that well yet. Felicity found that William has a big interest in computers, a field that she fortunately has a lot of knowledge in, so they had to started to bond over that. Since William now knows Oliver is the green arrow, Oliver brought him down to his arrow cave to check out the set-up Felicity had created. Felicity made Oliver promise that he would keep a close eye on what he did with her 'baby', but William ended up being the one keeping Oliver from breaking one of the hard drives.
Oliver made sure to get William a cell phone immediately, so that he could text Oliver if he felt anyone watching him, but luckily all William has used it for was to play games and call old friends from Central City. Oliver pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to William to tell him to meet up at their room, to which William responded with, be right there. They met up and made their way to the car, where they drove by target and bought everything on Felicity's list, then they went and picked up a meal at a nice Chinese restaurant. When they got home, Oliver opened the door to see many boxes spread out all over the floor. He looked at them confused, but William knew exactly what they were.
"YES, my room stuff came in." He ran over to one of the bigger boxes excitedly and said, "This must be my bed. Awesome! I got bunk beds where the lower one is queen sized. I've never had a queen-sized bed. My mom always said there was no reason because I was too small so I didn't need one." He laughed, but then we he realized he had just mentioned his mom for the first time since much the day after her death, the smile slipped from his face and was replaced with a scowl. He looked away so that Oliver couldn't see his eyes as they shined with tears. "I'm going to go to the bathroom," he said quickly as he got up and ran to the restroom while wiping his tears on his sleeve.
Oliver didn't know what to do. He wanted to go after him, but he thought he should give him a little bit of space. He wished he knew what to do to make him feel better, but Oliver wasn't very skilled in the parenting department. Or the child department, Oliver tended to avoid being around children before the island and definitely after when he became a vigilante. He tried to read books and articles about it, but he got a bunch of mixed results that made him hit his head against the desk repeatedly for quite a few minutes. Oliver decided to let him be alone for a while, but after well over thirty minutes had passed by, Oliver became to anxious and decided to knock on the door and check on him.
"Hey William, are you okay?" Oliver asked, trying not to sound like he was pushing him.
He heard William try to restrain his sniffles as he said, "Yeah, I'm just not feeling that good, it was probably the food."
Oliver knew that was a complete lie, but he decided to play along, "Alright, I hope you feel better. I was hoping to get this bed together before you had to go to bed, but I guess you could sleep on My bed again and I'll just sleep on the couch."
"Why don't you just put the bed together?" William asked.
Oliver scoffed, "You think I can hold up two different pieces of boards while trying to screw them together, ha."
It was silent for a few minutes, but the door was opened slowly as William appeared, his eyes slightly red and puffy, but overall, he seemed okay. Oliver smiled and said, "Awesome, let's go put some bunk beds together."
Oliver and William carried the heavy box into the empty extra room that used to be Oliver's when he lived with Thea, but was currently deserted. They worked while talking about all kinds of things such as how William was actually two years ahead in math and how his friends used to make fun of him for it until he entered a competition and his math skills won him two tickets to go see One Direction. Oliver was enjoying the fact that William seemed to be opening up about himself, it seemed that every time that Oliver got him to start talking, every time he would mention his mom he would craw back into his shell. "I swear, Darren was soooo mad when I told him I wasn't taking him. I told him I would, but we can't really get there, so I went with my mom." Again, Williams eyes got a little dimmer and the smile that he held for a total 28 minutes, fell. Oliver decided that this was not going to go away on his own, and he was going to have to do something about it.
He held up a screw to the board William was holding up, and started to screw it with a screwdriver as he said, "You know, my mom died a few years ago." William looked up at him with questioning, somewhat shocked eyes. "Yeah, we were pretty close when I was younger, she was the best. Anyway, when she died I didn't feel like talking to anyone about it. I mean look at me, I'm six feet tall, a very muscular guy, I don't seem to let things get to me, so people would think it was weird for me to cry about losing her. So, in order for me to stop crying and "be a man," he said while making quotations with his hands, "I had to not talk about her. I couldn't talk about her without crying, so I just couldn't. Not until me and Felicity started to get close. One night she confronted me on my feelings and made me talk about my mom. Yeah, at first it hurt, it hurt so bad that I thought I would never stop crying, but after a while, the memories stopped being these knives that I was shoving into my chest, and more like happy things that let me keep a piece of my mom with me, at all times. I want you to talk about your mom. Tell me what her favorite cereal is, what was her job, what was her favorite sport, okay?"
William looked down, but nodded. Things were silent for a few more moments as they finished the piece, but when they moved to another one, William finally piped up. "She hated sports."
Oliver looked over at him with a confused expression. The young boy smiled, noticing the confusion, and said, "You said to talk about her favorite sport, she didn't have one. She thought they were stupid, but she watched every Mets game with me. She even got her own Mets shirt and hat so that we could wear them together." William pulled out his old backpack which was full of everything he had of his old house. Oliver was getting a bunch of things shipped over from a close friend of Samantha's, but until then, William's whole life was stuck in a ratty old backpack with broken zippers and a half ripped off pocket. He fished around a little, until he pulled out a thin female shirt that had Met's written across the front. He held it closed and breathed in the scent of his mother that had overcome the t-shirt from years of wear. His tears fell freely over it as he thought about all the games that they watched together, and the fact that they would never watch another game together again. He sat on the floor while Oliver took him into his arms and let him cry it out. He knew the road ahead of them was going to be a long road, but he was ready for anything life threw his way.
The next morning at a quarter till 8, an embarrassed Oliver ran into Felicity's hospital room and grabbed the bag of William's school clothing as Felicity glared at him.