title: Lost Happiness

author: melpomene blue

chapter: three

She wasn't cold anymore. That was quite possibly the first coherent thought to take hold in her jumbled thoughts – without a doubt, it was the most wonderful thought ever to have been conceived. Not only was she no longer cold, she could feel a plush warmth helping to press her into a downy-soft cloud of more warmth. It had been so long since she had been warm, so very long...

She almost allowed her eyes to flutter open but a sudden spike of fear tugged at her – what if this were nothing more than some highly intricate, intense illusion created by her own brain in frantic desperation. What if she was still buried deep in that cold tomb of a cave.

Without a second thought, she allowed sleep to pull her back from consciousness again. She would open her eyes when she felt stronger, more up to the challenge of facing her dream and the possibility that it was actually a new twist on the same old nightmare.

The next time she roused, she was able to detect more than just soft warmth. Some of her old aches and pains had awoken anew and, even with her elective-blindness, she could detect various kinds of bandages, even steri-strips and possible stitches. A breathing mask covered her mouth and nose, the gentle but stale swirling air trying to dry our her mouth and sinuses even more than they already were. Adjusting her head slightly, she could feel the smooth locks of her hair shift and settle against her neck and shoulder. She felt clean, her skin and hair, it had been so long since she had felt clean.

There were noises as well, sounds she steadfastly ignored as she tried to compile her mental list of things she felt. Allowing her brain to change direction, she worked to separate each sound, beginning with the ones least likely to draw any emotion.

Medical equipment beeped and hummed away in easy contentment somewhere near where she lay. The heart monitor was slowly speeding up though so she worked to relax before anyone realized she no longer slept. There was another humming some distance beyond the medical equipment, a thrumming that sounded very deceptively like her computers in the lair beneath Verdant. There were also footsteps pacing back and forth in a seemingly endless flux between where she lay and another point some distance away. She also heard voices.

It was, above all else, the voices that frightened her the most. It wasn't that the voices themselves were frightening or threatening in any way but rather exactly the opposite. The voices promised safety, security, protection, friendship – everything she had been without.

Stuck down in that cave, she had thought many times that she had heard her friends somewhere on the other side of that terrible trapdoor. Every time she thought she heard their familiar voices she would cry out for help. The first few times she did this, nothing happened. Then her captors changed things up just a little: she would hear the familiar voices, she would call out, the trapdoor would open just enough for her captors to take action. Sometimes it was a pot of boiling water tossed down on her, other times it was a thick cloud of pepper spray released into her prison – she learned to remain silent.

The voice she heard sounded so very much like Oliver that she couldn't stand the torment any more and allowed her eyes to open slightly so that she could peer out at the world around her. If this was all a dream, she was prepared to bring it into reality and wake up.

It was difficult to be positive but it looked like she was in the so-called Arrow Cave. The lights had been lowered drastically and her glasses were again missing so it was more difficult to be certain but it seemed right. Someone was standing between where she lay and her bank of computers, the mystery someone had stopped pacing but was still talking softly on the phone, their back turned to her. She was willing to bet the mystery someone was Oliver but still didn't know if she was quite up to testing her theory lest she be proven very wrong.

Gritting her teeth, she shoved aside her anxiety and very slowly managed to reach up high enough to pull the oxygen mask away from her face. She kept her movements almost completely silent, any rustling of blankets or linens was thankfully covered up by the sounds of the medical equipment. With her world still spinning out of control all around her, she was desperately clinging to anything she still had control of – her pet rock was missing but she could control how much noise she made.

"Ol-Oliver?" Her voice sounded like gravel on sandpaper and she cringed from the sound of it in her own ears.

Almost as soon as she opened her mouth to speak, Oliver spun on his heel and quickly crossed the distance separating them. "Felicity. You're awake."

She tried to swallow but her throat felt too dry and swollen. She blinked – her eyes felt no better than her voice sounded – and silently wished for her glasses. As if by miraculous intervention, Oliver gently lifted her glasses from a nearby medical stand and eased them onto her face.

"Better?" He kept his voice soft and she wondered why but settled for nodding slightly.

The world was again in focus and she was nearly undone by the simple pleasure of unhindered sight. She met Oliver's eyes and felt the tears threatening to fall.

"Shhh... It's okay. You're safe." He reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand as the first tear trailed down her cheek. "Are you in pain?" He reached for a pre-filled syringe and prepared to add it to the IV line she had just noticed.

She watched him as if she were in a dream. She could feel a ghost of a smile soften the line of her lips. "Asprins."

"Something even better." John patted her arm affectionately and she might have jumped had she not been so weak. As it was, her fight or fright instinct had completely abandoned her in favor of a more deer caught in the headlights reaction without the anxiety and sheer terror.

She glanced down at her hand. The sight of her misshapen fingers had become such an every day, normal sight that the thick white gauze bandages that bound her whole hand seemed more alien to her than the mangled digits had.

"The doctors fixed them in surgery. They say your hand will be as good as new in almost no time," John offered quietly, his voice just as soft as Oliver's. "They fixed a lot of things."

She allowed her gaze to trail along the length of her body. Everything seemed so foreign. Her previously broken leg was in traction and not an inch of flesh was to be seen anywhere thanks to a multitude of bandages starting at all ten toes and stretching to the soft blanket that covered her legs, both hands and arms were swaddled and she could only imagine how the rest of her body looked. She probed her skull with her uninjured fingers.

"You're lucky to be alive after that head trauma. Not everyone would be."

She dropped her gaze.

"You were lucky, Felicity. I know it didn't feel like it down in that cave and I know it probably doesn't feel like it now but it's the truth."

She lifted her gaze again to meet his kind eyes and swallowed raggedly. "H-how?"

"Here." Oliver's hand appeared out of nowhere with a cup of water and a straw.

"But just sips," John cautioned.

It was nothing short of torture but she only took small sips until her parched throat felt more capable of speech. "How long?"

"How long were you missing?"

She shook her head sharply, feeling the panic welling up in her chest. She didn't want to know how long it had been, at least not yet. A flash of memory threatened to overwhelm her – dragging herself across the floor of the cave in the dim, dusty light to add yet another stone to her growing pyramid of pebbles.

"How long have you been back?"

She nodded slowly.

"Just over a week. You were in the hospital until yesterday. Oliver arranged to have you moved here last night. He thought you might prefer familiar surroundings but if you'd rather go back to the hospital..."

"This is fine," she whispered roughly with an added shake of her head. "Better than a hospital. Darker." She waved her hand vaguely at the overhead lighting before letting her hand fall back to her side. Keeping her voice whisper-soft, she added, "I don't want to know how long it was, maybe later when I'm feeling...better. I kept track. There was a pile of pebbles..."

Oliver touched her shoulder, drawing her attention. "I saw it. Smart. I also saw the messages, Felicity."

"I thought I was going to die down there." She swallowed again, accepting the straw when Oliver raised the water glass to her mouth again. "I didn't want anything left unsaid."

Oliver closed his eyes briefly and ducked his head. "I'm sorry it took so long-"

"I don't want to know how long. Right now I don't even want to know why or who. I think I just want to sleep some more. Can I just go back to sleep?"

John moved next to Oliver. "Yeah, you can sleep. Of course you can. If you get hungry just say the word. We've stocked up on broth and jello." He smiled in encouragement.

She nodded and snuggled down into the soft bed. She knew she would have to face the harsh facts of her abduction eventually but just now she didn't even want to think about it. It was all just far too much to take in. She just wanted to sleep and forget that anything so horrific had happened to her at all.