Chapter: 25 - Emergency Drive Repair
Word Count: 5249

Notes: HOLY CRAP, GUYS, THIS IS A MONSTER OF A CHAPTER. It actually didn't take me that long, but it somehow turned out at 5,200 words—nearly double the length of my normal chapters. So, um, the next one's probably going to feel short after this. Whoops. :P But I can't think of anything to take out, so you get this. ;) And those of you asking for more Diggle, well, you got it. ;) I hope you think it was worth the week-long wait after that horrible cliffhanger I left you with. ;) Thanks in advance for reading, reviewing, and/or commenting! :D

Also, be on the lookout for a new side story on Monday or Tuesday that deals with the fallout of what happens here. It's going to be called "Data Synchronization," and it will sort of finish out what happens here. ;)

Felicity sighs as she unlocks her car remotely, ready for pajamas and a long night of mindless television. She has Oliver's laptop under her arm, and it's something she can work on if she feels like it, though she probably won't. With the tech support logs tonight, the last thing she wants to do is more computer work. In fact, if she never sees a computer again, she thinks it might be too soon.

She slides into the driver's seat easily, starting the car before she even thinks to shut the door. She's so focused on checking her gauges that she doesn't think to check her rearview mirror, and she lets out a scream as she sees movement out of the corner of her eye. It's muted, however, by the hand that clamps over her mouth. She immediately reaches for his hand, trying to move it so that she can bite it and run, but an unnaturally deep voice says, "I'm not going to hurt you, Felicity. It's just me." He releases his hold on her, and she tries to stop her hands from shaking.

She answers with a curse so violent that it makes her blush, covering her mouth as it slips out. It surprises her, though, when he chuckles about it. "What the hell is wrong with you? I don't care if you want to show up at my house like a stalker or at my office, but you just don't hide out in the backseat of a girl's car. That's just a whole new level of creepy that even I can't handle."

"I wouldn't have," he answers quickly, and Felicity realizes for the first time that there's something very wrong with his voice, "but it was urgent." Now she's able to hear his breathing in the quiet, and it's ragged and uneven, as though something is horribly wrong.

She turns in her seat to face him, and her eyes immediately land on the dark shirt that he's holding to his chest. It only takes her a second to notice the red spray underneath it, and ice cold dread claws its way down her spine. "Oh God, you've been shot," she says immediately. She tries to fight that pure feeling of terror, since it's more important to stay objective.

She means to ask him what he needs next, but he cuts her off with a dry, sarcastic, "Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't noticed."

Her eyes narrow immediately. "Look, I'm going to give you that one because you're injured, but there's no reason for you to get sassy, mister." It earns her another soft laugh, which she figures is a good sign. She turns around, pulling her seatbelt across her shoulder. "So do me a favor and tell me where to go before I tell you where to go."

She feels a little silly for chastising him when he's injured, but he seems to appreciate the sense of humor. "Twenty-Second," he says immediately. "Remember the place you took me at Christmas?" She remembers it clearly; something about highly stressful situations seem to make her memory work overtime. He groans as she pulls out of the parking space. "There's an entrance in the lot behind it—it looks like a piece of corrugated tin lying there. Pull it up, punch in the code two five, four two. Got it?"

"Yeah," she says, and she's very glad her voice isn't shaking. Suddenly the stress feels real as she pulls into the street, and she tries to avoid the traffic lights as she weaves in and out of lanes.

He groans again, and this time it's because he's pulled the cloth away. Felicity pays enough attention via the rearview mirror to see that the wound is spurting blood, not a steady flow like when she gets paper cuts. Her medical skills may be lacking, but even she knows that probably isn't good. "So, um," she tries to ask casually, but her voice is too high, "just exactly how bad is this?"

"It's not good," he answers quickly, and it does nothing for her nerves. "Moira Queen shot me." Felicity goes blank for a moment because there's no way those words can be right. She's met Moira Queen before, and the lady wouldn't harm a fly if you asked her to. "It nicked an artery, and I'm probably going to be unconscious soon." She can hear that for herself in the slur of his voice, as if he's barely holding on.

"But..." She can't even bring herself to ask it; the thought is too horrible. She forces it out, convincing herself it will hurt less if she does it quickly, like removing an adhesive bandage. "But you'll wake up again, right?"

She's surprised he's even able to hear her because she says it so softly, but he answers hesitantly, "I don't know." Part of her wishes he had lied to her, but part of her appreciates the honesty.

"Well, you'd better," she says flatly, letting the anger and frustration take over, if only to keep her from hysterics. "Because if you don't, I'm going to be royally pissed." He laughs like she's joking, but clearly he doesn't know her as well as she believed—because she's not teasing.

The rest of the ride is made in silence, and she sees him in her rearview mirror, his head tilted away as he lays limp against the seat. It causes Felicity a brief moment of panic as she realizes it might be too late by the time she reaches the location. Then she shakes her head because that kind of thinking isn't going to help her now. She has to think positive—to think that there's hope—or she knows it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

She pulls into the empty lot, surprised to realize it's behind Verdant. She thinks that might be awfully risky, to have a base behind an occupied building that functions primarily at night, but he didn't ask her when he decided to set up camp. Her headlights land on the piece of rusted tin lying there, and she stops the car, parking without cutting the engine before she runs over to it. Sure enough, she pulls it up to reveal a keypad of some kind. "Two five, four two," she says quietly as she punches in each number, and the light on it goes green and the hydraulic hatch releases to expose a series of stairs.

She tries to move him, she does, but he's way too heavy for her to carry him while unconscious, and she knows she'd probably dislocate his shoulder if she tried to drag him. That's the last thing he needs, with everything else going on.

Knowing she probably shouldn't charge in, she hesitantly unzips his jacket, trying to find his phone. She feels a little bad about digging through his stuff, but she figures he'll forgive her for it under the circumstances. She finds it and pulls it out, smiling when she finds two of her sticky notes stuck to it. She didn't expect him to be so sentimental.

She tucks the notes back in his pocket, then turns the phone over to find the screen shattered. Frowning and trying not to panic, she turns it over, trying to find a way to crack the case. With another thought, she checks his pockets again, this time going for his pants pockets to find the knife she used to cut that arrow out of his shoulder ages ago. It's an awkward angle and motion, and she's glad he's not awake to see her face heat and make some comment about the fact. All it takes is quick flick of the release lever on the switchblade, and then she's able to wedge the blade out of the back of the phone. She pulls out the SIM card, grateful that her registered phone is the same model-even if hers is a little lacking on security protocols compared to his.

She frowns when she finds the PIN lock on it, but then enters the same numbers he gave her for the locked panel-two, five, four, two. She doesn't expect it to work, but it does, and she does a small fist pump before she opens the phone's contact list. She scrolls straight down to "Associate," just like the last time. She hears the moment it picks up, and she says into the phone before Diggle can say anything, "Mr. Diggle, this is Felicity. We're outside the underground entrance." She notices the twinge of hysteria to her voice, but she doesn't have time for hysterics. "He's unconscious, and I can't move him by myself. He was shot, and—" She chokes over the word as it finally sets in, then, quieter, adds, "And it's not good."

"I'm on my way out," is his only response, and the line goes dead. She notices how dark it is in the lot, and so she cuts the headlights and the ignition before anyone can notice.

She almost misses Diggle, but a flash of movement lets her know he's there. "Hey," she says quietly after she gets out of the car, opening the passenger door so that he can see the Arrow slumped across it. "Can you lift him, or will you need help?"

Diggle frowns. "We'll need to keep him in a horizontal position," he answers, showing some semblance of a medical background, "so I'll need your help." He looks from the Arrow to her. "I'll take the brunt of the weight if you'll lift his legs."

They somehow manage to slide him out of the car, and Felicity manages to carry the Arrow's legs under the knees. Diggle had the forethought to place a gurney at the bottom of the staircase, so they slide him onto that and roll him into their base of operations.

Felicity doesn't know what she expects, but this isn't it. She supposes she imagined it as a slipshod operation with little to impress, but she was wrong. A display of arrows sits off to one side, a nice glass-and-steel desk made to store a laptop that isn't there. Diggle slides the gurney into place behind the computer desk before pulling out a toolbox with a defibrillator on top, and Felicity realizes they've prepared for this possibility.

The Arrow's head slumps to the side, away from her, and she can see only the outline of his jaw under that hood, dark brown stubble covering it. His hood has fallen back enough that she can see part of his mask, and she pulls it back to cover his face.

It earns her an odd look from Diggle. "You know," he starts slowly, "you've saved his life. I don't think he'd be upset if you knew his actual name."

Felicity shakes her head adamantly. "No," she says flatly, her eyes on the Arrow instead of Diggle. "If I'm going to learn who he is when he's not under that hood, it's going to be because he tells me." She bites her lip. "I've stopped digging into his past, Diggle, because it doesn't matter to me anymore. If he wants me to know, he'll tell me. It's up to him now."

She turns her attention away from the Arrow, choosing to look at Diggle for direction. He apparently respects her wishes because he asks, "Do you know anything about medicine?" Felicity shakes her head, her eyes wide as she realizes they don't know how to save him. But Diggle sighs and allays her fears a little with, "I have some basic training from the Army, but that's it."

He frowns as he unzips the green jacket, and Felicity gags, praying she doesn't lose what's left of her lunch all over her shoes. Diggle tries his best to be comforting, but it's not his strong suit. "He's survived worse," he assures her, but she doesn't feel so confident about it.

"Press here," is his next command after he places his an impressively thick piece of gauze over the wound. She does as he asks immediately, watching the blood soak through the gauze, and she has to swallow the rising bile in her throat. To say the situation isn't good is an understatement, but she isn't sure what else to do.

Diggle frees her from her task, and, probably noticing how green she is, asks her to watch the heart monitor he's connected to the Arrow. The numbers aren't giving her much hope. Part of her wants to cry, scream, or rage about the situation, but she knows it simply isn't the time. Later, she thinks. She'll do one of those—perhaps all of them—after this nightmare is over and the Arrow feels well enough to haunt her window again.

Abruptly, a long, shrill sound comes from the heart monitor, and she jumps when a clear, typed zero sits where the pulse rate is, blood pressure dropping drastically. She turns to Diggle immediately, who is already removing the defibrillator paddles from the cart. "Do you know how to use those?" Felicity blurts, and his expression makes it obvious for her.

"We're about to find out," he says, and then the charge sounds. He presses the paddles against the Arrow's chest, and they both expect to see some sort of violent reaction to the charge, but nothing comes. Diggle drops a paddle to put a hand to his forehead, but Felicity senses victory.

"I heard the charge go through," she mutters to herself, finding it easier to work when she's talking to herself. Examining the front of the machine, she adds, "Now I need a screwdriver." Diggle hands her one, and she pries the front of the machine open and makes a few adjustments to the wires, muttering to herself about the circuitry all the while. "Okay," she calls clearly to Diggle, "try it again."

He does, and this time the charge clears, and Felicity doesn't know who jumps worse at the action—her or the Arrow. It doesn't work, but the second charge manages to do the trick, and her and Diggle both breathe a collective sigh of relief. This was too close, and she realizes that, somewhere along the line, an errant tear has made its way out. She wipes at it before Diggle notices, though it's probably evident in the lines in her mascara. Hopefully he'll attribute it to perspiration or the way she's been wiping at her eyes all night.

He looks up at her with what she thinks might be new respect. "What the hell did you do?" he asks, looking at her as though she just rewrote part of the universe or something equally as impossible.

She smiles a little, even under the grim circumstances, and offers him a small shrug. "I built my first computer from scratch when I was seven," she replies, her voice a little too high and frantic with nerves. "Her name is Essie, and she still works." She flushes as Diggle raises an eyebrow. "I may have strayed from the point, which is that wires are wires. I've built a lot of computers since then, and they all have the same wiring as this thing." She motions to the defibrillator, afraid to touch it in case it falls apart.

Diggle studies her a long moment, with those dark eyes making her feel like maybe he's reading her every movement. Suddenly she wonders how the Arrow works with him—the man is a stifling presence for someone so quiet. "When he first said you were working with him," he says slowly, "I thought it was an unnecessary risk of your life." He frowns as he looks at the other man on the table. "He's good at that—has a knack for getting people hurt because he's too reckless and desperate to leave them well enough alone."

He crosses his arms, leaning back against the computer desk. "But now I understand why he depends on you." He motions to the table, where the Arrow lay. "I mean, look at you—you've never done field medicine before in your life, but you're perfectly willing to get your hands dirty if that means you can save him."

Felicity looks down at her hands, and the blood coating her fingers makes her think that maybe that statement wasn't so metaphorical. She bites her lip before starting the story. "The night I met him, I could have turned him in, you know," she starts quietly, and Diggle's head snaps up, eyes boring into hers. "But I didn't—something I didn't understand at the time. But now I do."

She hesitates, and Diggle offers her the desk chair. She walks over to it and sits down gratefully, kicking off her panda flats in the floor. "I've been around a lot of different people—some good, some bad, but most somewhere in between. I've learned how to read them, how to come to snap judgments that are usually right."

Her eyes land on the Arrow, and she says more to him than Diggle, "And I was wrong. I came to the wrong conclusion, but, for some reason, I allowed him the benefit of the doubt. I decided to take a leap of faith for no reason whatsoever." She bites her lip, staring down at her hands. "I'm glad I did. Because I understand what he's trying to do in this city, even if I didn't agree with the way he was doing it—even if I still don't like the killing and the violence."

She looks up at Diggle again. "Bad things with good results. If there's some sort of cosmic balance sheet, I'd like to imagine that we're helping to sway it toward good. If not, well, I guess the road to Hell is paved with good intentions." She chuckles despite the situation and her words. "But I guess it doesn't matter now—I can't imagine my life any other way."

Diggle watches her with that stoic expression, revealing nothing of his thoughts. "I can't speak for you, Felicity, but he's been a better person since he's known you." He hesitates before saying finally, "I came to the wrong conclusion at first, too, but, like you, I chose to join him anyway. He's fighting a war against the criminals in this town, and he's never truly fought a war before. He doesn't understand how it eats away at you—how that struggle was already starting to chip away at him when we met."

He puts his hand on her shoulder in a comforting gesture. "It wasn't me who changed that—it was you, Felicity. He's gone from killer to almost heroic because he listens to you when he won't listen to anyone else." He hesitates one last time before turning to look at his friend and partner on the table. "And, no matter what happens here tonight—or on any other night—I think you deserve to know that." He snorts. "Not that he'd probably want you to know it, but you should nonetheless."

She snorts, too, rolling her eyes. "I'm just an IT girl," she answers. "It's not me who's important to this city—it's him. He's the hero, and maybe he asks me for help from time to time, but all of the good in this city recently is because of him, not me."

"For the sake of argument," he answers, studying her again, "let's say you're right. Let's say he's the one doing the good in this city—that you and I have nothing to do with his crimefighting." He's adamant now about this, and Felicity thinks she might be about to lose an argument. "Even if that's true, do you know what the Arrow was before he came to you with that busted laptop? He wasn't a hero—he was a killer. He took lives before asking questions, and there was nothing separating him from the criminals he went after. But it's only since you've been helping him that he's become something resembling heroic." He chuckles. "Don't sell yourself short, Felicity—I think you've taken a killer and turned him into a hero."

Part of her is almost glad to hear the heart monitor go off again, the machine screaming at them to take action. It pulls her from her chair, bare feet plodding along the cold floor. Diggle immediately goes for the paddles, but Felicity thinks she sees their problem. "Wait!" she calls as she looks at the lead at the lower, right side of his abdomen.

She fiddles with it, slides the wire back into place, her fingers lingering over the Chinese column of characters tattooed into his skin. Her eyes, however, focus on the angry scars across his chest, abdomen, and shoulders—basically anywhere skin is exposed—and she wonders the same thing she always does: How could any human being do this to another?

In the meantime, the beeping has stopped, and Diggle looks at her, expectant of an explanation. She shrugs, pointing to the lousy state of the heart monitor. "One of the leads came loose."

It earns a rare groan of frustration from him, a single moment where she sees how he's truly feeling: terrified for his friend and frustrated with his lack of control over the situation. "I swear, I'd rather see him jumping off rooftops and taking ridiculous risks than this!" he exclaims, causing Felicity to jump a little.

She snorts. "Are you kidding me? I was there when he raided Vanch's house, and I was terrified out my wits." She frowns. "Give me that over this any day."

Oliver awakens in a fog, stirring slightly. He tries to focus through it, tries to determine where he is and what's happened. The first thing he remembers is Felicity's car, and he realizes it's also the last thing he remembers. He'd been shot, and he'd waited for her in her car because of what happened.

Suddenly, he breaks through the fog, aware of many things. A sharp pain, agonizing even under the haze afforded to him by the morphine, shoots through his shoulder, and he guesses that it's from the bullet wound from earlier. Truthfully, he's surprised he lived. But it's the other shoulder that he doesn't understand; something sits on top of it, almost pinning it to the table.

Slowly, Oliver opens his eyes, and he can make out the blurred outline of the desk and his practice equipment before it shifts into focus. The patch over his wound, he notices, has been bled through, its white surface already red. It's definitely going to be slow to heal.

Diggle slides into his view, and Oliver realizes his vision is still partially obstructed by his mask and hood. He'd figured that they'd remove it, and he was almost hoping the secret was out; now he thinks it would be more of a relief to be able to tell her the truth. But he doesn't to tell her himself, if only because he knows she'll be hurt by the deception.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Diggle says with a small smile, the one that lets him know it was another close one. He presses the button on Oliver's voice synthesizer to turn it on. "Just in case you want to talk." Oliver opens his mouth, but Diggle cuts him off. "Before you ask, Felicity doesn't know—didn't want me to tell her." His hand falls on Oliver's arm. "I'm going out to her car to get your bow and quiver. Rest here a minute and I'll help you sit up when I get back." And then he's gone, disappearing out the second entrance Oliver told Felicity to use.

He tries to do that, but then he remembers the not-uncomfortable weight on his other shoulder, and, curious, he twists his head around to the other side to see what has him pinned. A smile plays at his lips as soon as he sees the familiar blonde hair sprawled across his arm. Her head rests firmly on his shoulder, arms thrown as if she'd been sitting with him and simply fell asleep. Her glasses lay beside her, the elastic from her hair in between their earpieces. Oliver thinks she looks peaceful, even if the circles under her eyes look darker than before.

Trying not to wake her, he uses his opposite arm without thinking, and then has to choke back a groan when the pain shoots through him again. This time he makes slow, easy movements, and he finds the pain tolerable. Gently, he cups his hand under her head, slowly laying her on the table and pleased he hasn't disturbed her much-needed sleep. He's been disturbing it far too much lately, and he can tell the trauma of being so much to him—as both Oliver and the Arrow—is taking its toll on her. He knows that, but still he can't let her go; he needs her far too much—more than he wants to admit.

Taking a deep breath, he slides up on his elbows, trying to sit up. He puts weight on his arm, and this time he can't stop the groan that leaves him. He thinks he might have opened up the stitches on top of that, judging by the way it feels like something has ripped.

Felicity sits up instantly, her eyes wide and unfocused. She grabs her glasses and slides them onto her face, blinking twice as her eyes try to focus. She frowns at Oliver, and he does not like that look when it's aimed at him. "Seriously?" she asks him, her tone frustrated.

She sighs deeply before pulling his left arm over his shoulder and her arm behind his back, helping him into a sitting position. "Couldn't you—I don't know—wait for me before trying to do this? You probably ripped out your stitches—it took forever to close that damn thing." She narrows her eyes, and he feels a little guilty for upsetting her. "If you wanted to sit up, you should have let me help you."

"I didn't want to wake you," he murmurs as she helps him turn to let his feet swing from the gurney. She rolls her eyes in response, but the small smile she tries to hide lets him know she isn't angry.

Felicity takes a moment to pull his hood further over his head, but then she pushes the left side of the open jacket aside, fingers deftly moving over the wound to inspect it. It's only then that he notices her fingers are already red, covered in dried blood. His blood.

She helped patch him up.

It's a startling, sobering thought. He only meant for her to take him to Diggle; Oliver didn't realize that, by enlisting her help, he'd be asking her to do something so very out of her comfort zone. He doubts she had any experience with wounds so serious. Part of him feels guilty, not because he thinks she was terrified (he knows better), but because he feels like he's corrupted her somehow, forced her into some bleak, gritty part of his world.

She peels away the gauze with nimble fingers, more delicate than either he or Diggle would ever be. He barely feels it when Felicity touches at the stitches with a fingernail, poking and prodding at them, her expression grim all the while, as if she's expecting the worst. "I think they might have torn a little," she says finally, "but they're still in." She frowns at him. "Take it easy on the heroics for a while, okay?"

He can't fight the smile on his face; only Felicity would call their work "heroic." Oliver knows he's nothing near hero material, but maybe he likes the thought that she sees him as one a little too much. He lets her seal the bandage back around the wound, again so careful and meticulous. She reaches for something else, but he doesn't let her, instead taking her hands in his own.

He studies them a moment, ignoring the way her eyes widen in surprise when he snatches those long fingers out of the air. He studies them for perhaps the first time, the way her turquoise fingernail polish is chipped, worn away at the ends as though she's been nervously chewing on them. Dried blood covers the pads of her fingers, the tips, sinks into her cuticles.

Finally, he looks up at her, not surprised to find her blushing again. "Thank you, Felicity," he says quietly, and he hopes she understands that he's not just thanking her for the rescue or for saving his life.

If anything, it makes her blush darken, and, when he releases her hands, she uses them to zip his jacket back up, breaking eye contact. "You're welcome," she answers quietly. Finally, she looks up. "I'm just glad—" She breaks off, taking a moment to look away before looking back at him. "I'm just glad you're all right."

He chuckles. "I guess I survived again," Oliver agrees easily. He's had too many near-death experiences, so the rush that accompanies survival doesn't seem to affect him near as much anymore. "Cool."

He expects Felicity to smile, maybe even to laugh, but he does not expect her expression to turn dark as a thundercloud. "'Cool'?" she repeats, her voice an octave higher. He was right; that's definitely anger. "There was nothing cool about tonight." Her voice turns scathing, a new tone entering it as she continues. "Unless you count the part where you were shot by Moira Queen—I guess that could have been cool. Or the part where you passed out in the backseat of my car. Possibly even when Diggle tied off an artery several inches from your heart to keep you from bleeding out." She pokes him in the chest, always mindful to avoid said injury.

"No, it was when your heart rate dropped and we had to use the damn defibrillator on you." She pokes him again with her index finger. "You don't get to be cavalier about this." She points to herself now. "Three times tonight I thought you weren't going to make it—three times! Your heart stopped, and both of us thought you were dead." She chokes on the word as if it's simply too painful to say, and he notices the dark spot under her eye smear. She turns away before wiping at it, flustered. "Forgive me if I'm not laughing," she says after a long moment, anger abated.

He scrambles to his feet, even though it sends another burst of agony through her shoulder as he pushes off with his hands. Oliver swallows, feeling more like a monster than he ever has before. He didn't expect that her emotions for him ran so deep, that she'd cry over the hooded vigilante that makes so much trouble for her. After all, when he'd—foolishly—tried to kiss her, she'd turned him down. And when she'd made that comment calling herself a fool, he'd thought that maybe she liked the allure of flirting with him.

But to think that she would mourn even the idea of losing him is a ridiculous, dangerous thought that fills him with something that feels almost like hope.

He places his hand on her shoulder, turns her to face him. She won't look at him, so he turns her head up. His gloved hand curves up to her cheek, and he gently brushes his thumb under her eye. She closes her eyes, and he's surprised when the dark circles under her eyes smear. Though she may need all the rest he's been robbing her of, Oliver also thinks that might be eyeliner or mascara with multiple tracks through it. There are so many things he wants to say, but only two words come out: "I'm sorry."

Her eyes fly open immediately, and he supposes she recognizes that he's needed to say it so many times before. It feels like weakness most of the time, admitting he's wrong, but not now.

She sighs deeply, then wraps her arms around his waist, always careful to avoid touching the wound. He hesitates for a moment, not wanting to screw this up, but then finally wraps his arms around her, his chin resting on her head. "Don't ever do that to me again," she demands with a soft voice muffled by his jacket.

"I'll do my best," he answers, giving her the only promise he can. She seems in no hurry to leave the embrace, and, truth be told, neither is Oliver.

There's just something comforting about it for him, even if he knows Felicity is the one who needs comforting instead.

Playlist:

"Sugar, We're Goin Down" - Fall Out Boy
"Hallelujah" - Jeff Buckley
"My Last Breath" - Evanescence
"Monsoon" - Tokio Hotel
"Lie to Me" - Sara Bareilles
"Howling" - Abingdon Boys School
"I Wanna Be With You" - Mandy Moore

Also, friendly reminder about side story #7, up Monday/Tuesday-ish. ;)