Author's Note: Hello, lovelies! So the good news is that this story is almost caught up with AO3! With this chapter up, it's now only one chapter behind! Yay! So I'm going to post Chapter 38 Monday and then 39 Tuesday. After that there are only two more chapters. I really hope you guys enjoy this chapter, it's one of my favorites!
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Chapter 37
"A break-in last night at Queen Consolidated left three dead and only one survivor. The company declines comment but rumor has it the survivor owes her life to the presence of Starling's very own vigilante."
It's nice that the news isn't crucifying him, but Oliver really could care less at the moment. He just needs to see Felicity, alive, moving around. Anything. Unfortunately, the camera man doesn't get the message. The footage doesn't cooperate, switching back to the newsroom where the speculation starts up as to what the mysterious killer could have been after.
Oliver glares at the TV. He shouldn't be here. He should be with her. The coiled tension that's only grown in the hours since he left her in the parking garage nearly snaps as Tommy places a mug of steaming coffee in front of him.
Hands curl into fists as Oliver stifles the urge to lash out in annoyance. The rich aroma hits his nostrils and he instinctively lifts the cup to his lips, waving away Tommy's offer of cream or sugar.
The rest of the world could burn for all he cares. Verdant could fall to pieces around him and he would keep searching for Felicity. The only reason he'd acquiesced was because it was Felicity. She was protected: by Lyla and the police. Malcolm wasn't going to strike again tonight.
He grimaces at the bitter taste: both from the coffee and the truth that was tough to swallow. He wouldn't have been helpful there.
Kind of like how useful he was here right now.
Careful not to spit the sludge Tommy called coffee back into the cup lest he hurt his best friend's feelings, Oliver slid the mug away from him as he forced the liquid down his throat.
He's never been a huge fan of coffee, not like Felicity. She savors the taste and gets pride from cultivating the perfect cup. He drinks it purely for the caffeine. It's not as good a rush as adrenaline, but it was enough.
But he has to draw the line somewhere.
"She's fine," Tommy says as he drops onto the stool next to Oliver. "They're probably just holding her for questioning. I could probably get Laurel to go in and check on her. God, that's awful." Tommy spits his own coffee back into his mug and grabs the creamer to pour another healthy dose of liquid sugar into his cup until it's more cream than coffee.
Tommy holds the creamer out to Oliver again, like that could possibly salvage his attempt at coffee. He ignores the offer as he pulls out his phone. Lyla should be texting him with another update any moment now.
If not, he's going out to find them himself, Felicity's plan be damned. He should be with her now. He wants to work everything out, to make sure she's okay after her close call with Malcolm Merlyn.
Malcolm.
His nails dig into his palms. Malcolm hurt her. He drew blood. It's unforgivable.
"Well, don't you two look morose."
He's on his feet before Felicity finishes her clever sentence.
"I guess morose isn't the right word. Maybe just worried, but you don't have to because I'm okay. See? Not dead. Perfectly fine."
Three steps later, she's in his arms and pulled flush against his chest. She makes a muffled squeak of surprise, but not even a moment later she relaxes into his hold and hugs him back. He tries not to think about how he melts a little when she buries her head in his chest and whispers. "I'm good. Really. Quentin just had a lot of questions and you know how he can be."
Oliver closes his eyes and breathes in her slightly floral shampoo. He missed these moments the last couple months, the private moments where he could just soak up her presence without freaking her out.
"Ahem." An overtired Lyla still acting as bodyguard purses her lips at him, unimpressed.
Oliver straightens from the hug, but keeps Felicity pressed against him. The physical contact is a balm to the nerves of the last could hours. "Lyla, why don't you head home. I've got Felicity covered."
"John's coming-"
"I can handle it." He meets her eyes as forcefully as he dares. She has to understand. They're two of a kind, him and Lyla. She's seen enough – she knows enough – to understand that he just needs to stay with Felicity right now, he needs to be with the woman he loves.
She purses her lips in indecision. "I-"
Felicity heaves a patronizing sigh and pats Oliver's chest. "I'll be fine, Lyla. Go get some sleep or spend time with your ex...whatever."
Oliver huffs, a bit miffed at Felicity's diplomacy when he's fairly certain he just basically said the same thing. She gives him a look and he just smiles at her, glad they're back to their usual antics, even if it is just for the moment.
Their talk is not going to be smooth sailing.
Lyla finally capitulates, her eyelids fighting gravity to keep her awake. "Fine. But I expect her back in perfect condition." Oliver feels like a teenager being warned off a girl he's about to take on a date.
He almost salutes. Almost.
He acknowledges her with a nod. "Got it. If you need somewhere to catch some shut eye-"
"I've got a place," she says quietly. "I'll be back at 1700."
Commanding as always, Lyla sweeps from the room. Maybe he should text Digg to check on her...
"Is that coffee?" Felicity makes a beeline for the bar. "Please tell me there's more!"
"There is," Tommy says slowly, "but it kind of tastes like crap."
"After the night I've had, I don't care." Instead of waiting for Tommy to go around the bar and pour her a new cup, Felicity hops on Oliver's recently vacated stool and lifts his cup to her lips. She winces at the taste, the bitter bite making her shiver as her face scrunches up. "Yup. That tastes disgusting."
Tommy snorts. "Believe it or not, Oliver drank that straight."
"Of course he did." Her confident gaze on him causes his heart to skip a beat. "He doesn't like sugar. It messes with his equilibrium."
He blinks. He never told her that. He never told anyone that. He doesn't think he's ever vocalized it before. The Island – and everything else he lived through – forced a notable change in him, His change in diet was indubitably the easiest to explain, and definitely not something he openly advertised. Although, with all the time they spent in close quarters it's not surprising that she would know.
She's smart like that.
He probably didn't even have to tell her.
Tommy snorts. "Or his taste buds are dead."
Felicity grins and says matter of factly: "You haven't had his cooking."
He cooks for her...
It's a shock and yet it makes perfect sense.
He doesn't cook. Well, he does, just not for other people. He cooks late at night to calm his crazy mind. He hasn't gotten the courage to let anyone else taste it. Although, Raisa keeps giving him looks and leaving out recipes he might want to try.
Apparently that changes in her future.
His insides fizz around in pleasure at the idea that one day he's able to cook for her, for the love of his life. The idea of a future with her inspires a hope he hasn't felt in months. The talk they're about to have seems both a little less daunting and a little scarier. On one hand, he's confident they'll work everything out. On the other...there's obviously a lot he doesn't know.
"This guy?" Tommy laughs. "I've never seen this guy make anything other than toast!"
Oliver bristles and has to remind himself that in the original timeline he hadn't learned that yet. His best friend isn't being purposefully dismissive. The smile still feels slightly forced as he says: "I'm full of surprises."
The character feels false on him. Tommy doesn't deserve this: the fake mask he puts on in front of the general public. He doesn't want to lie to Tommy this time around, whether outright or implied, so he drops the smile quicker than usual.
Felicity squeezes his forearm in solidarity. Her hands are as soft as they've always been, like silk whispering against his arm. Until this moment, it hasn't hit him how much he'd grown accustomed a certain familiarity between them before everything was ruined when that damn restaurant that was blown to pieces.
No. That's not true. He knows he missed it. He just didn't realize how his whole body would relax when he finally found himself home with her again. Knowing that she's fully aware of all he's done and all they've been through...that just makes him unusually warm and fuzzy on the inside.
Tommy shakes his head with a wry grin. "You sure learned some interesting skills on that Island." He pushes off the counter. "I'll handle the shipments today so you two can do your talk thing." Always one for the dramatic, he waits until the last second to call over his shoulder: "And you owe me, Smoak. Remember that!"
Oliver returns his gaze to the woman next to him still nursing his coffee. How is she still drinking that? "Owe him?"
"I might have cancelled his date with Laurel to get him to talk to you." She grimaces slightly but shrugs. Maybe there's a little regret, but he's not changing her mind. It's a dramatic change from the rambles and insecurity he remembers in her 2012 self and he's surprised he didn't see it sooner. She's not waiting for him to take the lead either. That's new.
Her confidence in her choices is a reminder that she's changed, that she's been through growth he hasn't. The Felicity he left behind would be at least a little nervous for that action. She's curiously unaffected.
Oliver steps back with a nod toward the secret entrance. "After you?"
Felicity swallows hard. "Yeah. Time for that talk."
...
Tension in the Arrow cave is not a new concept. If they could go a week without some sort of tension there, it would be a miracle. And Felicity's not just talking about the sexual tension so thick she could barely breathe. There were too many stubborn people down there for it to ever be an easygoing room.
Or there was some big bad who managed to infiltrate their sanctum, which happened way too often.
And Felicity can't exactly hide behind her computer screens this time. She has to participate in this talk, to lay her heart on the table, to bare her soul to Oliver. She's never been good at the talk-about-your-feelings moments. Her roommate in college called them "Come to Jesus" talks. They were supposed to be moments of emotional epiphany.
But, no. Felicity's always been inclined to bottle up those feelings. Ironically, her and Oliver were somehow able to bring out the strongest emotions in the other. Somewhere along the way, they got used to talking.
But figuring out where to start?
That's always been the hardest part.
Oliver wanders the basement for a couple minutes. His hands reach out as his fingers brush everything within reach as if they would give him sudden purpose. He pauses in front of his work station, examines the training dummy, his suit, and even her computers before he finally turns to face her, his blue eyes more than a little lost.
He's just as at a loss as she is.
That comradery soothes Felicity, grounds her. At the very least, she's not alone. His intense gaze breathes life back into her crazed mind, sorts her thoughts out in a somewhat organized way.
His eyes rove over her body. They pause at the patched cut on her neck and for a moment the love in his gaze is compromised by guilt.
"You're from the future," he says to kick things off.
He jumps right into the deep end. So much tact.
Felicity sucks in a sharp breath as he looks up at her from under his lashes. His resemblance to a puppy dog is disturbingly unfair, especially in moments like this. Those eyes slay her.
She can never say no to him.
They're really doing this then. They need to, desperately, but something deep in her had doubted it was actually going to happen. Shouldn't there be some big, evil thing happening right now to ruin the special moment?
The cosmos remains silent, so Felicity drops her coat and her bag on her chair, kicking off her heels for good measure. If they're doing this, she needs to be comfortable. She doesn't like the more distinct height advantage he has now, but she can't stand around in those shoes for much longer, not when she's already starting to develop blisters.
"Um, right. The future." Her feet move as her mind whirs. The physical motion really helps with the thinking. "From after the whole Ra's thing."
Oliver averts his eyes.
"He nearly killed you, which you obviously know since that's when you're from, right? That fight on the mountain?"
He grunts in an affirmative. "And you're from after that."
It's not a question.
She's about to open her soul and lay everything on the table and he can't even look at her. She'd spent the past hours at the police station debating how much she should tell him – what she should tell him – and she settled on everything. It doesn't make sense to hide it from him any longer. It should all be out there in the open.
That could also be her guilt talking.
Her eyes zero in on the end of his work table, next to the wheel he uses to sharpen his arrows. The cold metal under her fingers sinks through her skin and reminds her of past horrors.
"Malcolm brought back the sword Ra's shoved through your chest as proof of your death." She drags her hand over the cold metal where it sat for far too long, that painful reminder of all that was lost. "And of course it was your blood. We all took it differently..."
She wants to turn around, to say this all to his face, to make him look her in the eye as she shares the painful truth, but the gleaming metal holds her captive. "It took me a while to come to terms..." Her breath catches in her throat. God, she should she was over this. "To terms with your death..."
Words clog her throat, weighed down by her emotions, about the emotions she worries are going to make Oliver push her out again. There was a reason she didn't tell him in the first place.
She didn't him to be burdened with the truth she knew.
"Was I...Did I...?"
Felicity spins around to face him, crossing the room to grab his hand, to banish the question: He hadn't died. He had never died. "You showed up three weeks later. Made a huge scene, even though you should have been taking it easy."
He nods and then finally meets her eyes. "And...us?"
...
He frowns as Felicity stares blankly back at him.
His heart sinks the longer it takes her to answer. Something must have gone wrong. In the last twenty four hours he couldn't help but imagine what their future could have possibly been like. In all of them, him making it back from the fight with Ra's always involved a joyful reunion.
He didn't like to think about the futures where he actually died.
Felicity snorts. Her shoulders shake in silent laughter that soon grows and echoes around the Foundry.
What was so funny about his question?
The last thing he said to her was that he loved her. The last thing he saw before he thought he died was her face. It wasn't a laughing matter. If he returned alive the first thing he would do was pull her into his arms.
He knows that in his soul.
"What?"
"Sorry. I shouldn't be laughing." Chuckles break up her words. "It's really not that funny. It's just...that's as far from what happened as possible. When you got back..." Felicity's laughter dies abruptly and she purses her lips in displeasure. "Oh, believe me, I was ecstatic to see you...until you announced your intent to partner with Malcolm Merlyn to learn how to defeat Ra's Al Ghul. That's when you lost me."
She drops his hand.
Apparently she still wasn't over his little oversight. "But I thought-"
"There was a rough patch." She reaches out for his hand again and her thumb over his knuckles, focusing on their hands instead of him.
He's starting to get an idea of why she didn't trust him with the truth.
Is it wrong that Oliver wants to strangle himself for what he's put her through? He's seen her with Malcolm: He knows how awful that announcement must have been for her.
He couldn't even imagine making that choice.
"You and Malcolm," she spits the name, "come up with a stupid-ass plan to get Ra's to stop coming after you. It still pisses me off, so I'll just give you the highlights: Ra's stabs Thea, you trade your soul for her life, we try to rescue you, fail, and then you come back, kidnap Lyla to get Nyssa, marry Nyssa – still pissed about that by the way. She should really stop referring to herself as your wife.
"Where was I?" She frowns at him.
"Uh...marrying Nyssa. But she was with Sara..."
Felicity sighs, "I'll come back to that. So yeah...you marry Nyssa, almost kill all of Team Arrow – very stupid of you – and then come back to Starling with Ra's in an attempted suicide mission. Oh, yeah, and in the middle of that whole" she gestures vaguely, "mess, we finally act on the whole 'I love you' thing. After I yell at Ra's, of course, because I have zero self-preservation instinct. I mean, seriously? Ra's, Slade, Malcolm, Darhk? I have a terrible track record.
"Anyway...you kill Ra's, I save your life in Ray's ATOM suit. And then we literally drive off into the sunset." She claps her hands, but her body still radiates tension.
God, does he want the happy ending, even if it's not him him, but that can't be it. She's glazed over...probably a lot, downplaying everything. Besides, if they had been happy, then she would have told him right off the bat.
Right?
If everything was great, she wouldn't feel the need to hide things from him.
Still, her confession steals the breath right from his lungs. He didn't think there would ever be a moment of happiness. He'd braced himself for the worst. His hand tightens around hers. He must have misheard her. "What?"
He shouldn't sound that breathless.
She smiles softly up at him. The unadulterated love in the depths of her eyes threatens to make his breathing problem permanent. He rotates their hands to intertwine their fingers, seeking out her other hand.
This. He wants this. No walls between them, no forced distance. He wants to feel free to seek out her presence, to take comfort from her, to support her.
She licks her lips and it turns his stomach in knots. It's like he's a freaking teenager again, like it's always been since he realized what he was feeling.
"After everything with Ra's, we left the city, left it all behind us." Her smile is genuine, lighting up her face. She gets caught up in memories, her eyes taking on a far away look. Awe wells inside him slowly: He's the one who inspired that look. For a moment, at least, they were happy. In some universe, on some plane of existence, they were happy. It's something.
But it won't ever be enough.
Besides, he knows there's more. The depraved masochist in him can't help but ask: "And then what?"
Her eyes drop to their hands. His emotions mirror the action. He's already preparing for the inevitable, the fallout. Something has to go wrong.
"We come back?" He prompts.
She takes a shuddering breath and lifts her eyes back to his. "We traveled for a bit. Basically went around the world. Of course, you spoke like 12 different languages."
He laughs at her exaggeration. He revels in the picture she paints:
They must have travelled like he always imagined: walking or hitching rides, going to baazars, meeting locals, enjoying the fresh air. It was a treat he hadn't experienced since the Queen's Gambit sank, but with Felicity he'd started to imagine it again.
To imagine actually enjoying himself...
"We bought a house in a place called Ivytown. It's a couple hours away. It's like a little suburban bubble. We...we were happy, well, you were happy. You were going to propose."
Propose...
The hollow feeling is back. Of course something terrible would happen when he was that happy. "But I didn't."
Felicity continues, undeterred: "You had this fantastic dinner ready and then right before you could actually ask, Laurel and Thea showed up and said they needed us back in Star City. And of course we left. It was enough for you, but that life...it was never for me."
She sighs softly to herself.
A quick shake later: "And we got back here, moved into Thea's loft." She tugs him closer, a small smile pulling at the corner of her lips as she gets lost in happy memories. Oliver's glad he was able to at least give her those. It wasn't a complete failure then. "There was an adjustment period, but we grew closer...you decided to run for mayor."
Oliver snorts. Maybe she's starting to make things up. "I'm sure that went over real well. Did I get laughed out of town?"
Felicity laughs and shakes her head with a bright smile. "I'll be honest: I didn't see it at first. When you told me, I didn't think it would work, but then you made the announcement and...it just felt possible. You were brilliant. The people of the city love you. You inspired them as Oliver Queen."
He grins at the idea, so foreign to him. "Really?"
"Definitely," she says seriously. "There were some highly motivating speeches by Star City's own prodigal son."
He tries to imagine running a city during the day while still saving it at night, but the idea sounds ridiculous. He ran his family's company into the ground. The city couldn't possibly trust him, could they? He always failed at everything but fighting.
Except now he was failing at that too...
"You..." She falters for a moment, and looks up at him. "Are you sure you want to hear everything? The past has already changed so much, it's unlikely any of this will happen the same way. And some of it...you're not going to like it."
He's not stupid. She's said all the good things first. As good as everything's been, he knows it's going to be just as bad.
She's giving him an out.
If he was smarter maybe he'd take it. But he doesn't want her carry the knowledge alone. And he has to know, despite how it could hurt, he has to know how bad everything got.
"I need to hear this." He puts a little more distance between them but refuses to drop her hands as he braces himself for the truth. This is about more than truth-telling. She's already proved that she's willing to share. No. This is about supporting her, about being there for her, about not being afraid of facing the future with her. "What happened?"
She chews on her bottom lip. "Do you remember Samantha Clayton?"
...
His hands stiffen in hers and his shoulders tense as the name hits home. She didn't know until the words passed her lips that she was going to share this much. But she knows William means the world to him. She hates the choices Oliver made in regards to his son, without considering her, but she can't keep this from him.
"Samantha? She..."
Felicity smiles sadly. "You had a pregnancy scare. She told you she lost the baby."
He's too smart to miss the implied words. His mouth falls open as he flounders for words. Felicity gently guides him back and lowers him into his computer chair. She crouches in front of him and squeezes his hands.
"You've got a son." The boy's bright smile pops into Felicity's mind and she can't help the twitch of her lips. "His name's William. He's clever and kind. He's got your smile. You're just getting to know him, but you love him."
He stares at her in wonder. "How..."
"I got a garbled version from you and Barry, but as far as I can tell, you ran into them in Central City and got a DNA test. Samantha gave you an ultimatum: walk away from your son or keep his existence a secret from everyone."
His eyes lock onto hers in dawning realization. "I didn't tell you."
The sorrow washes over her briefly, but it's an old hurt, mended a little by time. "It comes out when Damien Darhk – the big bad we were fighting – kidnaps him. But you get him back," she rushes to assure him when panic flashes in his eyes. "You rescue him." She rolls her eyes lovingly. "And are oddly proud when Green Arrow becomes his favorite superhero."
Oliver smiles sadly. "But it changes things. Me having a son."
Felicity nods. "There were other things going on..."
God, how does she explain everything they were going through in those months?
He watches her expectantly. He's braced himself for bad news.
Felicity sighs. She's been over this argument with herself before, to the point that she now understands why Oliver did what he did. But understanding was never the problem: the problem was that he hadn't talked to her about it before making a decision.
Her current situation shed some interesting light on his thought process.
"You have to realize: Damien Darhk was powerful on a scale we hadn't faced. He'd trained as an assassin and he had dark powers on his side. We were fighting that, and you were running for mayor. There's no way I can possibly explain to you how much we grew and evolved. This all just skims the surface."
She pulls away and starts pacing, playing with her earrings. "My mom found the engagement ring. It was months after we left Ivytown and I thought you had just gotten it. And then I realized you'd been planning on proposing all those months ago and I thought you changed your mind. And we had the emotional talk of a lifetime and confirmed that we were partners in everything. In the middle of a highly dramatized kidnapping, mind you.
"It was after you found out about William, but you hadn't told me about him..." She takes a deep breath and turns to face him. "You proposed."
He sucks in a breath.
"And I said yes."
...
Oliver knows this is going to downhill fast. He wants to stop it, to yank it back into the happy picture it was. They were happy.
Yet it's so easy to see now why she didn't want to tell him sooner.
If he let her walk into their engagement without telling her about his son...
And wow...talk about a shocking revelation. He has a son. He's a father.
"So..." he rises to his feet so they're on more of a same level. "We get engaged and I still don't tell you?"
He wishes he could say it's hard to believe, but the truth is it's not. Here and now, seeing the obvious backlash, Oliver would tell her in a heartbeat. But without that fore knowledge, he couldn't guarantee he would make the right choice.
No wonder the truth is so hard for them.
Felicity groans. "I hate to say this: but it's not that simple." She rests her hands on the back of her chair. "We'd just dealt a blow to Darhk's operation and he decided to strike back at you through the ones you love."
His heart stops in his chest at the confirmation of his worst fears. Something happened. She got caught in the line of fire and he couldn't rescue her. Oliver crosses the room and tilts her chin up so their eyes have to meet. "Tell me," he says softly. "Please."
He needs to know.
"If he hadn't gotten to us...maybe you would have told me...but Darhk's henchmen...they came after us, shot up our limo, minutes after the proposal. You got us out of there, but..."
Air doesn't enter his lungs, his heart doesn't beat in his chest, he can't move a muscle if he tried. If he thought the idea of her getting hurt plagued him before this, it's nothing compared to now.
Except now he's not terrified about her dying. With Slade, with the missile into the restaurant, all he could think about was protecting Felicity, about making sure she lived her life as fully as possible.
That's not what he wants now.
Of course, he needs her to be alive. He needs it like he needs sustenance. And even if the time they have is short, he wants it, he wants her. He wants her close to him for as long as he can possibly have her.
Epiphany is a train slamming into him.
It's her. He just wants her. Her life, her choice. And for some reason she chose him. He wants to choose her too.
"I got shot. Paralyzed from-"
He cuts her off with his lips covering hers. His hands cup her neck, his thumbs running over her jaw. He presses his lips against hers firmly. They're so soft under his rough, calloused hands.
She doesn't react at first, just a whimper muffled against his closed lips. He makes no move to deepen the kiss, until she melts into him. She presses up against him, her arms wrapping around his neck to pull him down closer to her level.
He stumbles a little as she forcefully yanks him down to her level with a low moan he feels everywhere their bodies meet. He growls in response, his hands moving of their own accord. One arm wraps around her waist, the other hiking her up against him as he moves them. In two steps, he lifts her onto his work table as the kiss continues to deepen.
Her fingers card through his hair, nails gently scraping his scalp. The noises she makes go straight to his core. It's a pleasure he's never had before, hearing her like this, being with her like this.
The one kiss at the hospital wasn't enough. And he realizes now it would never be enough. He could have a thousand kisses with her and it still wouldn't be enough. He can't get her close enough.
Felicity's hands curl into the hem of his shirt, pushing the material higher. He's never been prouder of his physical fitness than when she pauses her ministrations to trace his muscles.
He freezes as her hands ghost over his most recent injury. He pulls back to get a look at her face. She bites her lip as she pushes the shirt up. In a trance, he lets her. Watching the awe that plays on her face as she runs her hands over his arms.
"You look the same," she whispers, her hands lingering over the new scar. "Even this one. It's the same place Ra's stabbed you...You're just missing a couple..."
A lock of blonde hair falls into her face that he brushes back behind her ear. Oliver buries his nose in Felicity's hair and inhales the light floral scent. She's here, warm and well in his arms. He would love to explore this more, love to learn her body as well as he knows her mannerisms, but they were in the middle of an important talk.
He can't keep putting off talking.
"As much as I would love to continue this..."
Felicity nods, almost to herself. "...we need clear the air. We agreed to never go to bed angry."
There's another story there, but he doesn't ask it. With willpower he doesn't know he had, Oliver takes a small step back, just enough so Felicity's no longer pressed completely against his body. "Good rule."
Felicity's chuckles. "I'll tell you the story sometime." Her face shifts again as she goes back to their discussion.
"We can go back to this later," he offers.
"No." She shakes her head. "No. I can to do this." She takes a shaky breath. "I was shot. And I got paralyzed from the waist down."
Oliver breathes out slowly through gritted teeth, unable to imagine the pain.
"You...You're amazing." And for some reason, she's comforting him now. "You put up with my craziness, and I put up with you going after Darhk with a vengeance. We're fine for a while and then."
Thoughtlessly, Oliver plays with her hand, bringing it up to his face so he can press a kiss to the inside of her wrist. "And then Darhk kidnaps William."
"Bingo." Felicity extracts herself from his arms, hopping down from the table as she starts to pace. "You know, I could live with the choice Samantha forced you to make. It wouldn't have been pleasant, but we could have moved past it. But then you sent them away."
He pauses. How does that change things irrevocably? He doesn't understand. Wasn't that the logical option?
"You did it without talking to me. One second they were thrown into our lives and the next you're telling me that you sent them away. We were starting out lives together and you were making arbitrary life decisions without talking to me about any of it before hand! How could I know that you wouldn't one day make that same decision to send me away because it got to dangerous?"
Oliver plops into his chair, dropping his head into his hands.
He still sees the logic of it, the necessity of protecting those he loves. It's easier to protect a secret than a living, breathing person who places themselves in danger. But he also sees Felicity's point: it's the same one he made when they were fighting at the mansion. They're partners.
They're supposed to talk about things.
"And I get that it's not you you," Felicity babbles. "It's a different version of you so don't get all high and mighty and take the guilt on yourself, but it's so damn frustrating. Everything was going so well, we'd gotten passed my paralysis. Hell, you believed in me more than I did at times and then you had so pull something like that. What if one day down the road we had kids and you tried to send us away?"
She wanted kids with him.
Yeah, he should have taken away more from her rant than that, but everything else turns to white noise for a moment. Kids? Just the word evokes an image in his eye, the same things he imagined when he walked into Lyla's hospital room a day after their failed date and witnessed Felicity cooing over Baby Sara:
A little bundle that barely fits in his arms, who cries with a vengeance but laughs and giggles more than anything. A baby girl with his eyes and Felicity's smile. A boy who always manages to find a puddle of mud. Lord knows any kids they have would be a handful. But he and Felicity would raise them right, raise them with love, and teach them how to defend themselves.
Heaven help him, Oliver's never wanted anything so much.
His next breath is shaky as he draws himself back to the reality of the story Felicity's telling. "So we break up."
"And I walk again. It's all appropriately dramatic," she says wryly, wringing a smile from him as he looks up at her.
She really would be a wonderful mother.
"We manage to defeat Darhk?" He clears his throat, hoping it'll also clear his head.
Felicity resumes her pacing with a brisk affirmative. "With some help from my father, of all people. I got my hacking from the man himself, and he's kind of a bad guy with a lame name. Who would actually call himself the Calculator? Seriously. But it's not all fame and glory. I have to redirect a missile and end up killing thousands. Lyla, of course, insists it's not as bad as the millions it could have been, but..." She swallows thickly.
"It stays with you," Oliver finishes in a whisper. He knows the feeling. "It changes you."
He never wanted this for her. When he brought her onto the team, he never imagined she'd do more than just direct them from afar, never imagined a scenario where she would be unprotected, where she would have to make the tough choices.
And boy had she proved him wrong.
Felicity is a warrior for justice. She stands up for what she believes is right. She protects others. She's the reason he believes so much in the symbol the Green Arrow can be. He wanted to keep her in that warm light, to never drag her down into his darkness, to the world of death and questionable morals.
Her eyes are haunted now. He did that to her.
But it's always been her choice to stay in this fight, to stay with him, and it's a choice he's had to learn to respect. Because she makes him better. And because this fight gives her something that was missing in her life.
For a control freak like him, it's hard to reconcile those ideas.
"We stopped him," Felicity continues, undeterred by the spinning thoughts in Oliver's mind. "You give one hell of a speech – as Oliver Queen, I might add – and the city rises up to fight with you. After that, you're a shoe-in for mayor. Thea, Digg, and Lyla leave the city. And it's just us for a while-"
Just them...at a time when there's a rift between them bigger than the Pacific ocean.
Oliver shakes his head. "Wait. What about Roy? Laurel? And are we even going to talk about how you brought Sara back to the city and the man who orchestrated her death?"
He tenses as he remembers the conversation that brought them here.
Felicity crosses her arms and starts to systematically end his objections. "Laurel brings Sara back to life when she finds out about the Lazarus pit against everyone's advice. As far as I know she's still working on the side effects. Roy claims to be the Green Arrow and fakes his death in the middle of the whole Ra's thing. Although he's doing well for himself now. Laurel..."
Her voice breaks on her name.
The floor disappears under him. Laurel may have her issues, but she will always have a special place in Oliver's heart. She was the first person to love him, the most constant person in his life, even after they hurt each other. They were friends first, and they were actually good at it. That something happened to her, it breaks his heart. "What happens to Laurel?"
The melancholy in her eyes answers the question for her.
Oliver collapses back into the chair with an inhuman gasp. His fingers dig into the arm rest, tearing at the material. Tears threaten to spill out, so Oliver slams his eye lids shut.
Laurel's life was never all that easy. She put up with him for far longer than she should have and heaven knows Oliver caused her a lot of pain. And then she had to lose Tommy. And then her life became a downward spiral of loss and heartache.
"How?" Oliver chokes on the word. "How does it happen?"
He has to remind himself that she's not dead. Not right now. Right now, Laurel Lance walks and breaths just like any other human being. She's somewhere in the city probably pining for his best friend.
He can still save both of them.
"Darhk kills her because Quentin betrays him. She dies a hero." Her hand slips into his, once more offering him what silent comfort she can.
The moment drags on as Oliver desperately tries to filter through the wealth of information thrown at him. And that's when he realizes she hasn't told him one important thing:
"So what happened to you? How did you get thrown into this mess?"
Felicity blinks in surprise and the one word she says surprises the hell out of him: "Slade."
"Slade?" The man went after her and failed. He was locked up on Lian Yu with no hope of escape. It's impossible.
She laughs bitterly. "And the crazy part is he wasn't even aiming for me. He was after William. I just got in the way. All this time worrying about protecting me, of course the biggest danger to me is me."
"WHAT?" He is not amused by this chain of events. Not in the slightest. Not only Felicity was killed, but apparently William was also in danger.
Her manic laughter dies out as she purses her lips at him. "Well, apparently, Slade gets off Lian Yu and goes after William and Samantha. Samantha comes back to Star City, to get your help. You'd think after everything we'd been through, you'd warn me about Slade Wilson being back. But apparently, you get the harebrained idea I don't need to know, so naturally, I don't find out it's Slade until William wanders away from you and you call me desperate to find your son.
"I didn't take it well."
Oliver's derisive snort spurs her on. Yup. Future him is an idiot.
"You call Digg back to help. He and I are with Will when Slade appears." She lifts her hand to her chest slowly, caught in the memory. "He was spouting the same nonsense about making you pay. But he wasn't after me this time. He wanted Will. And I couldn't let that happen. Digg tried to stop him, of course, but I was the one who got there in time."
Oliver swallows thickly.
Felicity Smoak: always the hero even though she'll fervently deny it. So Slade had kept his promise, had taken the one person he cared about most away from him.
"I was bleeding out in the lobby. And then I woke up tied to a chair in a smelly basement and met 2012 Malcolm Merlyn."
Just the thought of that trauma has his hands curling into fists. Malcolm was the first person she saw. Malcolm Merlyn. That on top of time travel. She deserves better.
He got kicked off a cliff, but he woke in comfort, greeted by a mother who he knew to be dead. She died saving his son and ended up in the hands of an enemy she hated.
Where was the justice in that?
"I didn't tell you to piss you off. I just wanted you to know: what happened? It was my choice. And I'd make it all over again. I make my own choices, remember?"
He remembers the talk. He doesn't like that she stopped a bullet with her body, but he accepts it as part of who she is.
Oliver scowls. "I should have been there. I should have never let Malcolm take you."
"Oliver, I know you would have if you could. Malcolm told me he killed you. I know you would have saved me if you could."
The muscle in his jaw clenches. It takes another moment for him to nod in understanding, to admit defeat. "I'm sorry I wasn't there."
The breath of air escapes her in a gust. "Oliver, unless you've figured out a way to control this, it's not your fault. Right now, the common denominator is dying in another timeline...," she frowns, "and you getting stabbed in the chest, but I'm pretty sure that can't be it."
His serious eyes land back on hers and Oliver realizes how close they've gotten, how easily he can reach out and touch her, how he can see every emotion in the depths of her blue eyes. Yeah, he's still such a goner for this woman.
He reaches out to cup her cheek, his thumb running over her bottom lip and ratcheting up the tension between them. He sighs and rests his forehead against hers, his eyes fluttering closed.
"So...what do we do now? About Malcolm, the time travel...us?"
Felicity's runs up his cheek, mirroring his posture. "Malcolm should be our first concern." She pulls away from him a bit so she can look him in the eye as she nervously fiddles with the hair at the nape of his neck. "As for the time travel...I'm trying to find John Constantine. Turns out, it's a lot harder when you haven't met him in this reality yet."
"You've met Constantine?" He furrows his brow. The few times he met the Brit in the five years he was away, he wasn't very social.
"Once. You needed to find Sara's soul. And then you called him when we were fighting Darhk and he sent us to a blackjack playing witch. But I figure this whole thing must be mystical because science sure as hell doesn't explain it."
Flawless. Her logic is flawless.
"I can call him," Oliver agrees easily. "Done."
"As for us..." Her face furrows in thought and all Oliver wants to do is smooth it out. They're on such unequal footing here, but that kiss earlier was magic.
"How about," he starts, "we take things slowly. Future-me made some..."
"Idiotic?" she suggests with a smile.
"Stupid," he fills in, "decisions. But I'm not him. Coming back here, doing things over, it changed me. And I don't want to lose you now because of something he did. So..." he looks down at the woman smiling in his arms. "Felicity Smoak, would you like to go on a date with me? And yes, I mean a date date."
Felicity grins at the allusion and settles her arms more comfortably around Oliver's neck. "I would love that."