Disclaimer: I don't own Arrow. Thank you all for your reviews and follows. I'm glad I managed to show how traumatizing the Mirakuru thing on the island was for Felicity. I've always thought it was the worst year for Oliver, and the year that affected him worst of all, even more than the Alpha-Omega genocide/Akio's death. Naturally it would be the same for Felicity.
Also, I realized that I had forgotten to add the judge's sentencing of Moira, as I had planned, so I used the scene for this chapter's flashback. Credit for my inspiration goes to CyberQueen!
Quote used for the chapter title is from "Lily" surname unknown. You'll understand why I chose that at the end part.
Finally, I have to warn you guys that I start my first year of college next week, so my focus will have to shift and there may be delays in getting chapters up. I will still update ASAP, but college comes first I'm afraid.
Now, all that being said, please read, enjoy and review!
Twenty-Eight
The Meaning of Life (Is the smile of a mother)
Dig drove so fast that they beat Tommy to SCT, if only by moments. Tommy's Range Rover pulled into the lot as Oliver and Diggle were carefully removing the girls from the backseat, Oliver lifting Felicity while Dig took Sara, taking extra care not to move the knife still buried to the hilt in her torso. The doctor barely paused long enough to park before he and, to Oliver's surprised alarm, were jumping out of their car, medical bags in hand.
"Oh my god!" Aly exclaimed when she saw them. "Tommy take Felicity, I've got Sara! Be careful you don't jar the knife!"
"You brought Aly?" Oliver hissed at his friend.
"I had no choice, Ollie," Tommy snapped back as they all hastened towards the secret door leading to the base. "You told me I had two women in critical condition who needed urgent medical attention and I've only got two hands! Now, tell me everything about how she was poisoned. What the hell happened, and where was she injected? Could she have any more injuries other than the poisoning? Do you know roughly how long she's been unconscious and has she woken up at all? You're sure it was Factor IX?"
Oliver struggled to answer the questions being shot at him rapidly as they arrived at the base and the women were promptly laid out on tables for the doctors to treat them. Dig and Oliver hovered, anxious and wanting to help but aware this was way out their wheelhouse. Their skills were way too rudimentary for trauma surgery like this.
"Tell me you guys store blood?" Aly demanded as she ripped Sara's top open, muttering a violent curse at the sight of the bloody torso. The knife had kept it from gushing, but she was still drenched in blood. "Somebody get me a cloth and some water to clear the site! Now!" Dig ran for the blood (they had a whole fridge full of it, one shelf for Felicity-A negative, two shelves filled with O positive for Sara and Dig, and an extra shelf of O negative (the universal red cell donor) and AB (the universal plasma donor) at the bottom) and grabbed two bags each for the girls. "You know how to set that up?" Aly snapped at him. "Good, hurry, hurry, I need her hooked up before I can remove the knife. Shit, she's got bruising on her abdomen, it might be internal bleeding. I need to check her BP. Grab it from the bag, hurry, hurry!"
Meanwhile, Oliver had grabbed the demanded water and cloth, happy to have something to do instead of waiting around helplessly.
"Fuck!" Tommy, who had been bent over Felicity, attaching her to a drip, suddenly swore as the EKG he'd hooked her up to blared. "Starting chest compressions!"
He clambered onto the table and started pressing down harshly. "One, two, three!"
"Oliver!" Aly called sharply as she directed Dig to prepare to clamp down on Sara's wound when she removed the knife. "Do you have a blood thinner?"
"What?" He repeated blankly, too panicked by his wife flatlining (for the second time this year) to comprehend her words. "I don't-"
"She's suffering from intravenous coagulation," the trauma specialist explained impatiently on her husband's behalf, as Tommy didn't dare to risk removing his attention from the CPR. "Her blood is unnaturally clotting. It's like maple syrup. We need to thin it out. A Vitamin K antagonist would work. Do you guys have rat poison?"
"Rat poison?" Both men cried in unison, horrified by the suggestion.
"Don't let go of that wound!" Aly snarled at Diggle, who's grip on the gushing blood had slackened from his shock. "And yes. It'll work, it would only be a tiny amount."
"That could kill her!" Dig protested.
"Without it she'll die anyway," Aly answered seriously.
"Ollie," Tommy called for his attention. He continued to preform the compressions as he met his best friend's gaze. "Trust me. Please."
Oliver folded. He hurried to the corner and grabbed the rat poison, left over from when they were redoing the place after the Undertaking and some rats had taken up residence in the basement. He carried it over to Tommy, barely registering Aly and Dig's urgent actions over Sara's prone form were slowing slightly as she began to finish sewing up the wound.
"There's a syringe there, on the counter," Tommy alerted him, continuing with the compressions still. He was sweaty and there was a pant in his voice. CPR, when done correctly, was not for the weak-bodied. He could tell that he had probably at least cracked, if not outright broken, a minimum of two of Felicity's ribs, but she was breathing again, so he took it as a win. That being said, he was too wary to risk stopping the compressions.
"Babe, you need to swap out?" Aly called to him as she finished with Sara.
"No, I got it," he gritted out. "You do the injection." She didn't answer, hurrying over and snatching the syringe from Oliver. She filled it to five mls and injected it right in Felicity's chest, knowing it was the best chance the other woman had and every second was crucial.
A tense moment later, Felicity let out a gasp and her oxygen levels began to climb again.
The group all slumped in relief as their adrenaline started to drain, and Tommy groaned as he climbed back off the table, scrubbing at his eyes.
"Thank you, Tommy," Oliver croaked out as he took Felicity's limp hand in his own. The dark-haired man gave a drained smile.
"Hey, what're friends for if not saving your wife from certain death?" He questioned him with a ghost of a smile. Then he turned serious. "That being said, while I'm always willing to help if you guys need medical attention-"
"We both are," Aly inserted quickly and firmly.
"I hope we never have to go through this again," Tommy finished with an exhausted sigh.
"That makes two of us," Oliver remarked softly, eyes drifting down to his wife's still form. "But something tells me we're not going to be so lucky."
Starling City: December 2013
"Does the jury agree with the prosecution's recommended sentence?" the judge asked next.
"The jury does not."
There was another round of shocked gasps and whispers, and Moira, Thea and Oliver gained hopeful looks. Felicity felt as if the bones in her hand were being crushed, Oliver was clutching so tightly to her.
"We recommend a sentence of several years under house arrest," the leader of the jury went on, "with restricted movement under strict supervision, and revocation of the defendant's passport. In addition, the defendant will perform a minimum of two thousand hours of community service, aiding the Glades and victims of the quake. Any charity work will not be counted as part of her service. The defendant will also be made to pay damages to the families of the five hundred and two victims of the earthquake, as well as to the city. Finally, she is to be barred from retaking her position at Queen Consolidated, and is to have no access to any R&D project."
That was a perfectly acceptable and reasonable punishment, one that they could manage, even if the damages would probably cause a strain. They'd expected to have to pay a heavy fine to the city and victims. If she was careful enough, Felicity could probably move some money from her offshore accounts to the Queen ones, and maybe even get some from the frozen Merlyn accounts. She'd just have to be careful about it, so that the IRS didn't pick up on it. She already knew they were watching the accounts. It was doable, though. Especially if she called in one of her markers from ARGUS. As for banning Moira from accessing R&D, Felicity got it. The earthquake machine was created under Moira's orders, after all.
Of course, all of this was assuming that the judge agreed, which he had yet to do.
"I agree with the jury's recommendation," Judge Hankerson declared after several moments of tense silence as he deliberated over the jury's recommendations. "I hereby sentence the defendant to a period of ten years during which she will wear an ankle monitor and prohibited from leaving the state, two thousand hours of community service, and order her to pay damages to the victims' family, the amount of which will be determined by the state of Washington." Another thud of his mallet as Thea broke down into a fresh bout of crying and Moira abruptly sat down, seeming dazed.
She had been prepared to die, Felicity recognized. But not to live. And that was often the harder thing to do.
"The court is adjourned."
Felicity rubbed her pounding forehead harshly, leaning against the wall of the hallway after leaving Thea's room where Tommy was tending to the arrow wound she had given Roy. The doctor had shot her a pointed look to silently express his disapproval at her actions, but Felicity was unable to find the energy to care, especially after what had just happened. For a moment, she could have sworn that she had just seen Shado standing in front of her with a soft, sad smile, before disappearing when Felicity blinked.
It was completely impossible to have seen her, given that Shado was dead, and had been for about five years now. Felicity of all people would know, as the one who had seen her be killed and buried her herself, with Slade and Sara's help.
"Not possible," she whispered to herself. "It was just a trick of the light. That's all."
It had to be. Felicity wasn't going mad, she didn't have time. The city was drowning in crime and the ongoing consequences of the Undertaking, plus there was SCT, QC and, most importantly, her family to worry about. She couldn't afford to have a mental breakdown when her city was being attacked by someone with Mirakuru running through their veins.
She shuddered at the thought. Sara had been discreetly admitted to hospital by Tommy and Aly to help her recover better. Quentin was with her now, while Dinah was on her way down from Central City. They'd claimed she had been mugged as a cover story. No doubt the Canary would be indignant at the thought that she couldn't defend herself from some two-bit street thug, but selling the image of Sara as someone with only above average self-defence skills at best would help in obscuring her identity.
Of course, her father had quickly figured out the truth, which in turn had led to him putting two and two together and realizing that Felicity was Artemis. Quentin Lance hadn't been Lead Homicide Detective of the SCPD for the best part of a decade before his demotion for nothing. He had expressed his worry for their health, made them promise to be as careful as they could, and said nothing else. Felicity was surprised but relieved that he hadn't made a big deal out of it as she would have expected. It had been Oliver who pointed out the obvious to her.
"He's your dad, Lissy," he had reminded her. "His priority has always been your, Sara and Laurel's safety. He might not like it, but he knows that those skills kept you alive. If he had to choose between his oath as a police officer and his daughters' safety and freedom, of course he'll choose his girls. Same as we would do for Will in his position."
Felicity knew Oliver was right, but she and Sara still felt terrible about the difficult position they had put him in, especially with so much effort still being funnelled into the Anti-Vigilante Taskforce. In addition, Sara's return to Starling had caused more resources to be put into it again. The police clearly believed that Felicity was the priority and that the Canary was 'just' her follower, but there were warrants out for Sara now too. She didn't receive as much coverage as Artemis had since the start of her campaign against crime after her return, but she was still being venerated as a hero by the Glades (especially women) and cursed by the law enforcement/elite of the city.
The bright spot was that Felicity had it on good authority (i.e. the programs she had created and inserted into the servers there) that City Hall was being heavily pressured by the public to stop trying so hard to arrest her and her team, and instead focus on the actual criminals the ones doing harm to the city. Felicity didn't consider herself to be a hero, not after everything she had done, and she knew that Sara felt the same way about herself, but the public vocally disagreed.
"It was just a trick of the light," Felicity repeated quietly to herself. On the other hand, maybe it hadn't been. Did ghosts exist? Maybe she should call Constantine and ask if ghosts were real, and if so, what sort of laws did they live by. Maybe Shado's spirit was haunting her.
God, she hoped not. If anybody deserved to have a peaceful, happy afterlife, it was Shado Gulong. Well, Shado and sweet little Akio.
Tommy left the bedroom, shutting it quietly behind him. He opened his mouth, paused, narrowed his eyes at her and came closer, clearly changing what he'd been about to say.
"Felicity, how're you feeling?" The doctor asked, studying her carefully with a physician's keenly assessing eye.
"Fine, just a bit dizzy," she replied, rubbing her temples tiredly. "Did I say thank you for helping, by the way?" She added, hoping to prolong the period before he started scolding her for shooting Roy. In her defence, she was panicking.
He was clearly planning on going after whoever had killed his friend (Max, was it?) himself. And seeing as Felicity knew the signs of a failed Mirakuru injection when she saw one, she knew he would (most likely literally) be ripped apart if he did so. Worse, Thea and Sin were both investigating the mysterious death with him and would be at risk too, so she'd had to do something to stop him. Physically disabling him had been her best chance, as he was much too stubborn to give up because of words, as he had proved when he demanded she give him more than simply having him be her informant. She wasn't willing to do that, however. It put him physically at risk, and Thea emotionally at risk, plus Felicity genuinely liked the kid.
"Yeah, back at the basement," Tommy answered, still looking her over critically. "I-"
"How's Roy?" She cut in quickly to distract him from trying to be 'doctorish' towards her. Then she winced internally as she realized that she had just left herself wide open to a chiding on shooting him, exactly what she had wanted to avoid.
He frowned at her reprovingly, clearly recognizing what she was doing, but went along with it. "He'll be fine. The arrow was aimed carefully. He'll be sore for a few days and a have a bit of a limp that'll heal, but it was shallow. Small scar. I hooked him up to some sedation so that he'll sleep for the next day or so, give it time to heal a bit before he's up and about again. Otherwise, knowing Roy, as soon as he wakes up he'll be up and about, risking the stitches. He's almost as bad as you."
"Good, I'm glad he's okay," she said sincerely. He must've read it in her expression because the scold in his blue eyes softened.
"Listen, Felicity," he began. She tensed, anticipating him lecturing her about shooting the kid. (She really did feel bad about it, even if she still thought it was her best shot at keeping him out of the Mirakuru mess). He surprised her with his next words. "There are some side effects to the injection I gave you."
"What sort of side effects?" She asked, a hint of hope sparking. Maybe it was just the rat poison (it freaked her out to know that they'd injected her with rat poison of all things, but it wasn't the worst makeshift medical treatment she'd been given, so she dealt with it as per usual, via the tried and true method of suppression.) that had caused her hallucination of Shado, not a result of insanity.
"Bleeding, obviously," he began to list. "Headaches, stomach pain, unexplained bruising, diarrhoea, vomiting, fever. Necrosis, but it's very rare. Then again, you have shit luck so it's probably a stronger possibility for you. And then there's hallucinations. Those are all I think of."
She let out a shaky breath at that and nodded. "Right."
"Are you hallucinating?" Tommy asked her worriedly, seeing her going stiff for a moment at the mention of hallucinating.
"Yeah," she admitted. "At least, just now I thought I saw- but it's impossible. Very impossible. I was seeing things."
"What did you see?" It was a personal question, but Tommy was a close friend, even if the knowledge that she had killed his father (however estranged they were and no matter how much Tommy hated him for what he had done, Malcolm was still his father, and had been a good one before Rebecca's death. Knowing that Felicity had killed him was an elephant in the room whenever they met.) had caused them to drift apart these past few months.
Felicity decided to tell him, hoping it might bridge the emotional gap between them a bit.
"Not what," she corrected him in a soft voice, looking towards the window and out of the garden instead of at him. In her mind's eye, she saw Shado as she had been during her life, strong, defiant, beautiful, an arrow pulled back on a taut string as she prepared to fire. "Who. Her name was Shado Gulong. We were on the island together. She was murdered in '08, I guess? It was hard to tell time. She's the one who taught me how to shoot a bow. She was like a sister to me, really."
"I'm sorry, Lissy," Tommy replied gently, resting a hand on her shoulder and rubbing it. Felicity gave a strained smile.
"Me too," she answered, a wealth of meaning in her words. Their gazes met, and Tommy nodded in understanding, forgiveness in his eyes.
It was a silver lining in a terrible period for the blonde archer.
Laurel was Christmas shopping with Sebastian when she got the call. She had just picked up a general gift card for the mall for Sara as a present. She wouldn't have bothered to ger her anything at all, but for the sake of her parents she had decided that she would play nice with her estranged sister (and with the Queens, should she be unfortunate enough to see them) during the holidays.
"So, we-" Sebastian was in the middle of speaking when her phone buzzed.
"Hold on a moment please, Babe," the lawyer smiled flirtatiously at her boyfriend as she pulled out her phone. She frowned briefly at the unknown number on the screen, pressing the answer button. "Hello, this is Laurel Lance."
"Miss Lance, I'm Lisa Adams, calling from Starling General Hospital. You're listed as the emergency contact for Officer Quentin Lance," a woman stated, her voice tinny from bad reception. Laurel stopped walking, going tense.
"Yes, that's my father, what happened, what's wrong?" She rushed out. "Is he okay?"
"Your father was injured while attempting to apprehend a suspect earlier this evening," Ms. Adams informed her in a grave tone. "He's currently unconscious. Can you please come to the hospital right away? He doesn't appear to require surgery at this point, but there are some forms that need to be filled in and such, and he's expected to wake up within the next few hours."
"Of course, I'm on my way," Laurel agreed anxiously. "I'll be right there. Thanks." She hung up and immediately began heading for the car, Sebastian at her heels with a concerned expression on his face.
"Laurel? What happened, is your dad alright?" He asked worriedly.
"No," she sniffed. "He's in hospital. He was helping apprehend a suspect and got hurt. I need to get to him."
"Of course, let me drive you," Sebastian offered caringly. "You're so upset, you won't be able to concentrate on the road properly."
"Alright," she acquiesced, handing him her keys as they arrived at the car door.
At the hospital she spoke to the Chief and learned who exactly the team (all of whom were now dead save for her father, thank God, and Officer Daily, the group's inside man at the station. Lucas Hilton, her dad's long-time partner, a man who had been a surrogate uncle to her, was among the dead. Laurel was the one who had to tell his wife, Jeannie, the news. She had never heard a cry like that before.) had been trying to arrest. Her blood turned cold when she heard the name.
"We got an anonymous tip of who the thief who broke into Queen Consolidated's Applied Sciences' building last week was," the Chief told her. "A guy named Cyrus Gold. He was ID'd on a video tape sent along with the tip. The team was just a small one, seven altogether. But they were all good, solid officers with experience. And this son of a bitch slaughtered them all without even needing a gun."
Laurel nodded shakily as she listened to the older man tell her and Sebastian that they were circling a photo and a 'do not approach, call 911 immediately' warning for Gold. After assuring her that they would get the guy and asking she give his best to her father, he left to get back to work.
She sank into Sebastian's arms as soon as they were alone. "Oh, God, Seb," she whispered to him fearfully. "What're we going to do?"
He swallowed heavily. "I'll speak to Cyrus," he murmured. "Convince him to calm down a bit. Everything will be fine, Laurel. Don't worry. Your dad's still alive, at any rate, and so is Daily."
"No thanks to Gold," she answered bitterly. He grimaced but said nothing. He didn't get the chance, as that was when Quentin began to stir.
Neither Laurel nor Sebastian had noticed the blonde ex-assassin who'd been hovering just outside of her father's room, reluctant to enter when her sister was there, and who had heard the whole thing.
Neither of them saw the way her expression darkened into a cold, terrifying expression as she listened to her sister and the alderman's whispered conversation. Sara's heart hardened towards Laurel in that moment. She didn't know the full story yet, but she knew enough to determine that Laurel was up to her ears in the Mirakuru mess, and that the Mirakuru-drugged man was the one who had nearly killed their beloved father. It was a sin that Sara, who still had nightmares of Lian Yu and the Amazo, whose greatest fear was Mirakuru and who had spent years clinging to memories of her family to retain her sanity, could never forgive.
Silent as a ghost, Ta-er al-Safer slipped away, heading back to her own hospital bed to keep her opponents unaware that she had overheard them.
"I think that arrow's sharp enough," Dig informed Felicity as he came up beside her, crossing his arms over his chest.
Felicity pulled the arrow away from the sharpener, grimacing at her partner. "It has to be sharp enough to make up for the fact that my mind's lost its' edge."
A blood test had confirmed that she had no physical reason to be seeing (and in Slade's case, fighting) ghosts. Meaning she really had gone crazy.
Terrible timing. Couldn't her mind have been decent enough to wait until she had killed the psychotic bastard stupid and arrogant enough to get jacked up on fucking Mirakuru to snap?
"You know when I got back from my first tour, I had Survivor's Guilt," Dig informed her, leaning against the metal table and studying her with knowing eyes. "I saw some friends of mine. Friends that hadn't made it back. They were me asking why us, why not them?"
"I know why," Felicity answered flatly, clenching her fist around the arrow she held. Ivo had chosen Shado to die because he had, in a very twisted way, cared for Sara, and he had hated Felicity and wanted her to suffer. Slade had died because she had made a choice in that moment when she had to choose to go for the arrow or the injection. To eliminate the threat he posed forever, or take a risk and use the untested antidote.
She had known of how dangerous Slade could be in his right mind, and he had been rambling about getting revenge on the ASIS for 'abandoning' him and Billy on Lian Yu, on Russia itself for producing Ivo, on everyone he could think of. She had pictured the damage he would wreck on the world if she didn't stop him.
And she had chosen not to risk it, and had stabbed him in the eye pressing its' point all the way into his brain and letting him be blown up with the rest of the Amazo to ensure it.
"Then the why's not your problem," Dig shrugged.
Felicity glanced down at the floor. "How'd you make them go away?" She asked hoarsely. It was pulling her fragile sanity apart, seeing Shado urging her to lay down her bow and rest, to hear Slade damning her for not being good enough to save his lover, for abandoning him, for murdering him after all they had been through together.
She needed it to stop, otherwise she would probably kill herself, or let herself be killed to put an end to it.
"I figured out what they were trying to tell me," Dig explained simply.
Felicity bit her cheek, contemplating that. She was tempted to ask what Dig's ghosts had been telling him, but that was personal. She wasn't exactly keen on telling him or Oliver what Shado and Slade were saying to her, after all.
"I gotta go," she sighed finally, swinging her quiver onto her back.
"Felicity, wait!" Oliver called frantically, rushing over with a panicked expression. "You can't go," he insisted, gripping her arm.
She sighed, wishing he hadn't put her in this position. "I have to go, Oliver," she argued in a strained voice. "Gold is way too dangerous to be left to run loose around the city. There's no other option. I have. to. go."
"Gold left both Sara and her dad half-dead, which is twice as good as he left the rest of the team sent to arrest him," her husband protested. "He nearly killed you last time you went up against him, nearly killed Dig! You can't take him alone, especially not hallucinating and recovering from the last time you fought him."
"There is no other option, Oliver," Felicity replied desperately. "Believe me, there is pretty much nothing I want to do less than go after Gold, but he is too dangerous. He has to be put down. Please Babe. I gotta go." She was close to tears, and she could see his pleading expression. But his shoulders slumped and his grip on her slackened.
"Come back to me," he begged her softly.
She flinched, unable and unwilling to make such a promise. Then she pressed her crimson-painted lips softly against his own in a kiss before pulling away, grabbing her sword and heading for the exit, feeling the guys' gazes burning into her back.
Felicity went pale with horror as she arrived at the building they had tracked Gold to. Not only was Gold and some guy in a skull mask there, but, more importantly, Thea was there too, tied to a chair with her head lolling against her chest. Despite Felicity's desperate attempts to get to her sweet sister-in-law, she was unable to get past Gold in time to stop the Skull-Mask man from injecting the young woman with the Mirakuru.
"NO!" Felicity screamed in panicked horror as she saw Thea's body seize before she went limp, red trails of blood dripping down her pale cheeks.
"You son of a bitch!" Felicity screamed in rage. "I will fucking kill you!" Skull-Mask's mocking laugh was cut off abruptly when she dodged around Gold and flung her knife at him. She'd been fighting sloppily up until then, shaken and frightened by the Mirakuru, made unsteady and put on the backfoot by the memories it brought up and the hallucinations of Shado and Slade. But in that moment her aim was true as ever, and the knife sunk inches deep into his chest. He choked and stumbled back, clutching at it and clearly stunned by the turn of events, even without seeing his expression Felicity could tell that.
Gold let out an enraged yell when she took down Skull-Mask. He grabbed her by the arm and threw her, causing her to be slammed headfirst (Tommy would have a fit, she already had a concussion from her last fight with the enhanced man) into the wall. She coughed as she accidentally inhaled the dust from the hole her head had created in the plaster. She managed to roll away from it, groaning and whimpering in pain and exhaustion.
Her gaze landed on Thea as her eyes fluttered shut.
She was so tired of fighting all the time... not just fighting, but failing too. She was so tired. She'd been doing this for almost seven years straight now, ever since she'd washed up on the godforsaken beach of Lian Yu. She just wanted it all to end, to have a life that consisted of being a regular mother, wife and tech expert, not the main line of defence for Starling City. Was that too much to ask? A bit of peace to enjoy her family, maybe give William a brother or sister as she and Oliver had once discussed before the wreck?
"Baby Girl, what're you doing?"
Felicity inhaled sharply as she recognized the voice of her newest hallucination. Tears were already welling her eyes when she opened them to take in the sight of Donna Smoak. Her late mother looked (of course) just as Felicity remembered her looking. Her blonde hair was long and curled gently, framing her face. Her make up was done and she was dressed in her pink waitress uniform from the diner that was her day job, with a short skirt and low neckline paired with a pair of killer heels and her name stitched in red calligraphy across her left breast. That form-fitting uniform was the source of many tips that had paid their rent for their crappy Glades' apartment.
"Momma?" Felicity whimpered. She knew it was a hallucination, but oh God how she missed her mother. As a child, Felicity had resented how much Donna worked. She loved her mother, and it stung because from her youthful perspective, Donna preferred to spend time flirting with men at the casino or one of the other jobs where she worked to spending time with her daughter. There had been days that Donna forgot to feed her because she was too busy with work, or else so exhausted she simply fell asleep on the ratty couch and didn't remember that Felicity needed dinner. Felicity had felt that her mother must blame her for Noah leaving, and thus avoided her as much as possible. But as she'd grown, Felicity had comprehended more and more that Donna had no choice, and even with three jobs they had been struggling to get by. It had made her deeply appreciative of the sacrifices she had made for her, and guilty over her youthful resentment.
Even when she thought that Donna didn't want to be around her, though, Felicity had never doubted her mother's steadfast love and devotion to her. No matter what suffering she went through, what grief and torment was heaped on her, she would always mark the day Detective Lance had come to her apartment and explained gently to her that her mother had been killed by a drug dealer on her way home as the worst day of her life.
"Baby Girl, you gotta get up," Donna urged her. "You're a Smoak woman, and Smoak women don't lie around, waiting to be rescued."
"I can't Mom," Felicity whined. "I'm too tired. It's too much, I can't do it anymore. I'm not strong enough."
"Nonsense!" Donna scoffed. "Like I said, Baby. You're a Smoak woman. My mother was strong enough to make it through three years in a concentration camp in Poland during the Holocaust, as well as make it through moving to the other side of the world with her little brother and no parents, and not only start a new life, but a successful one too. She provided for the both of them, sent my uncle to school, all by herself for four years until she married your grandfather. When your dad left, I was strong enough to move the two of us across the country to somewhere nobody knew about him and his illegal actions, and to raise you myself. And I did damn well if I do say so myself. My greatest achievement in life, no question about it."
Felicity hiccupped. That wasn't her own subconscious being arrogant, it was her recalling something she'd heard Donna say to somebody once. Felicity couldn't remember who it was, but she had cradled that memory close for many years, as a reminder of how much her mom had loved her.
"You got through the boat wreck, Lian Yu, Hong Kong and Russia," Donna went on encouragingly. "You completed a Masters at MIT by 18, and while pregnant and then raising a baby for the last part of it! You're so tough, Baby Girl. You can do this."
"I don't want to," Felicity whispered. "None of this-I never wanted this to be my life."
"Your Bubbe used to say that if you want to make God laugh, you tell him your plans," Donna observed. "I know you don't want to do it, Felicity, but you made a promise. I didn't raise you to break your promises. And this Mirakuru thing. You're the only one except Sara who understands just dangerous it really is, and Sara can't help right now. It has to be you."
"I know," Felicity sighed in defeat. She looked at her mother's image with tears trickling from her eyes. She didn't even bother trying to suppress them. "I miss you so much, Mommy," she whispered. "So much. I didn't tell you how much I loved you nearly enough. How grateful I am for everything you did for me. Everything you sacrificed."
"It wasn't a sacrifice to raise you, and to do everything I could to nurture your potential," Donna refuted calmly. "You remember, I told Sally Jackson that when you were eight, and she agreed the same about dropping out of college to raise her son. You were the greatest gift in my life, same as William is for you. I told you that."
"Yeah," Felicity breathed. "You did. You were the best mom I could've asked for."
Donna smiled sweetly at her. It was the same smile William had, and she loved her son all the more for that. "Easy to be a good mother when you have an amazing daughter," she observed. "I might not've always been the mother you wanted, but I love you Baby Girl. I always will. And I am so proud of you."
"I love you too," Felicity breathed, watching as Donna finally faded away. She knew instinctively that the hallucinations had come to an end.
She understood now.
She clambered to her feet, spying Gold bent over Skull-Mask. She went at him, and the next few minutes were a blur of furious, determined fighting. She was reinvigorated by speaking with her mother. It might've been a hallucination, but pretty much everything Donna had said was an echo of something she'd said in reality when Felicity was a child. As a mother herself, Felicity was certain that Donna would still feel the same way if had lived to learn of what Felicity had done. A mother's love was unconditional.
Eventually, Felicity managed to get Gold up against the wall and next to the centrifuge. While the man was strong, he clearly wasn't trained in proper fighting, and like most successful Mirakuru subjects, his enhanced rage clouded his mind and damaged his ability to think clearly, and by default kept him from strategizing.
Once he was pinned, Felicity shot. Not at Gold with his almost impenetrable skin, but at the centrifuge beside him that was full of toxic chemicals. It exploded, and Gold screamed as the chemicals burned away his skin and life. Just to be sure, because she knew from experience just how difficult it was to kill a Mirakuru-laced person, Felicity then took advantage of his current inability to fight and raced closer, to decapitate him with a forceful swing of her katana.
"No!" A weak voice groaned. "Cyrus!" She spun, staring in surprise at Skull-Mask, who was still clinging to life. She withdrew another knife, bracing herself. It was possible that Skull-Mask was also injected with Mirakuru, but she doubted it from his attitude. Too calm headed.
She went over and knelt beside the bleeding man, pulling off his mask. She bit back a shocked gasp when she recognized Sebastian Blood, mayoral candidate, popular Glades alderman and Laurel Lance's boyfriend. In the back of her mind, she made a note to cover up the signs of her involvement. Despite his now obvious corruption, Blood was popular in the Glades, and the public would quickly turn against Artemis if they learned she had killed him.
"This isn't the end," Blood warned her, no doubt trying to frighten her.
"It's your end," Felicity replied with a cold shrug.
"I'm not the only one," he threatened her, making her growl in anger. "My associates are involved too. The city will be saved."
She scoffed. "Clearly you know nothing of Mirakuru," she sneered at him. "If you think that it will save anything. And as for your associates, I guess they'll all be getting a visit from me."
"You'll never figure out who they are," he insisted stubbornly.
She rolled her eyes. "I think I'll start with investigating Miss Lance, perhaps?" She suggested with a raised eyebrow, a smirk forming when she saw alarm flicker through his expression. So, Laurel was involved in this. Not good. What would she say to Sara and Quentin?
"Who are you?" He wondered. "I'm dying anyway. You might as well let me see the face of the woman who murdered me."
She pursed her lips but complied. She grabbed the top of her wig and pulled it off.
He let out a choked laugh. "Felicity Queen née Smoak," he mumbled. "Huh. Who'd of guessed?"
"Not you, clearly," she shrugged. "Now, I have a sister-in-law to help, and a city to save. Goodnight, Alderman." He opened his mouth, but he never got a chance to say another word, as she slit his throat in a swift motion.
Then she was instantly on her feet and racing to where Thea was still slumped, tied to her chair. She'd known that there was no point in rushing right to her. If the injection was successful, it would take awhile for the heiress to stir. If it wasn't, Felicity had no interest failing to find any signs of life in Thea's small form.
Truth be told, Felicity wasn't sure which would be worse. But despite her terror, she cut the ropes and laid Thea flat on the ground to do CPR. After three repeats, the brunette girl finally gasped, though she failed to regain consciousness.
Felicity buried her face in Thea's torso and wept in a mixture of fear and relief at her survival.
Thea was alive, but the Mirakuru was now coursing through her veins, and Felicity feared that she might've lost her sister (the in-law part was irrelevant) forever, even with her survival, just as she had with Slade.