"THERE'S ALWAYS THAT ONE PERSON THAT WILL ALWAYS HAVE YOUR HEART"

Damien Darhk

It's so dark in here. It's so cold. It's been dark and cold ever since I landed in this...abyss. Ever since I found myself in this vortex of nothingness, this vortex of death. It does make sense though.

I'm dead and this is where my soul chooses to entrap me. This...hell of pain and suffering. I suppose it's what I deserve, even though I was trying to do the best for the world; help it create a new beginning.

And I would have succeeded; I had everything I needed to succeed.

If only Oliver Queen had stayed in his urban townhouse playing farm with his girlfriend.

Because I, for one, underestimated him severely. I underestimated him, and I underestimated the love of his life.

Every man has his weakness, every man has his totem, and every man has his strength. A smart man would place a different sentiment for each category.

But for Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak was his weakness, his totem and his strength.

When I figured that out, I laughed until my ribs hurt at the stupidity of Oliver, whom after training almost ten years in a constant war, should understand the wrongness of that decision. Making one person your everything is the most idiotic thing to do, because when they leave, when they're gone, they take everything they have with you and you become nothing more than a piece of flesh.

It didn't hit me then, why someone who was extremely tactically intelligent like Mr Queen, would even consider doing such a risky move because I was thrilled that he made fighting the war so easy.

You want to kill Oliver Queen, you kill Felicity Smoak.

Unfortunately, eliminating her entirely proved to be a far difficult task than I thought. She had someone with her at all times and ninety percent of the time, that someone happened to be none other than Oliver Queen himself.

But then things turned out far better than I planned. Instead of her dying and Oliver coming after me in some distorted sense of vengeance and revenge, she left.

And I had thought; this is it. This is where he breaks. This is where he falls.

It was evident in the way he fought the next few days. The way his movements lacked purpose, his focus was deterred, the spark in him gone.

And I thought, despite the possibility of anyone harnessing it, Oliver Queen had lost too much for him to even potentially make a speck of light magic. The only thing keeping him at bay walked away from his life without the slightest clue as to how much he relied on her, how much he depended on her, how much was dependent on her.

And against my better judgment, I became cocky. I stopped keeping close tabs on Oliver Queen and instead focused on bringing my plan into action.

And then I died.

I had died before. But before, my soul didn't have a shred of the Lazarus Pit in it and so all I remember was being stuck in darkness and being numb for what seemed like an eternity.

Now, with the aid of the Pit, my soul can travel through this hellhole, and sometimes, enter the world before it is briefly pulled away, back into darkness and pain.

The first time this happened, I immediately went to Ruvè's grave. She and Nora were the closest things I felt to love and losing her caused a pain in me I never felt before. And I visited her grave, and I don't know how long I stood there, feeling nothing but numbness, until the swirling black hole engulfed me again, reminding me that I was dead, and she was too.

The second time I was given the opportunity to travel into the world, I visited Nora. She was sitting on a chair in the corner of a dusty room in a house I did not recognize and looking out the window. Her eyes were red, her nose was puffy, and she was as pale as snow, but seeing her, alive and safe gave me a sense of peace that I didn't know I needed. The second time I was given the opportunity to travel into the world, I felt the sharp pain of sadness break through the numbness, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before the abyss sucked me in completely and I wouldn't be able to see my daughter ever again.

The fifth time my soul was thrown back into the world, I listened to my curiosity (do dead people still feel curious, I don't know) and instead of closing my eyes to think about Nora's features, I instead focused on someone else.

I was immediately transported into 'the liar'. It gave me a small sort of satisfaction to look at the damage I made, the broken glass, ruined computers, missing mannequins. It gave me a small sort of satisfaction that I left Oliver Queen alone in the world; no sister, no Diggle, no Laurel, no Felicity.

For a second, when the elevator dinged an arrival, I almost ran for cover. Until I realized that I was dead (for a fact so prominent, it was sometimes hard to remember) and that Oliver Queen couldn't see me.

He walks across the room, all suited up, placing his bow on the table before making his way into a room I presume is the bathroom, judging by the sounds of water running.

I'm about to deem the situation terribly boring and worthless, until the elevators open once again and I spot Felicity Smoak making her way into the liar, her eyes automatically scanning for Oliver.

When she hears the water and sees him gone, I feel a self-satisfied smirk take residence on my face at the way she sighs in relief. Things are still stiff between them. Oliver may have won the war, but he's lost the love of his life and that is somewhat enough for me.

The sound of the shower comes to an end (man he showers fast) and Oliver walks out of the room, lacking a shirt and also failing to notice Felicity. The same cannot be said for the woman herself though, who can't keep her eyes off her ex-fiancé (emphasis on the ex) and for someone who claims to have no feelings for the man, the look on her eyes show more than just a few.

The moment Oliver spots Felicity is the same moment he stops drying his hair with the red towel, and he stops in his tracks.

I expect for an uncomfortable silence to overthrow the entire liar and for Oliver to resume staring at Felicity with that pathetic sad puppy look he donned back when I was alive.

Instead, he breaks out into the widest smile I've ever seen and I know if I were alive I would most certainly pop out of the corner I'm unnecessarily hiding in and taunt him saying "You are so whipped for a woman you'll never have ever again!"

He breaks the silence in the room, "Hey, how was your trip?"

Ms Smoak, who seemingly went somewhere for a couple of days (explains why Oliver came back from patrolling without anyone maiming the computers) doesn't say a word. She stares at him for a long minute, searching for something.

"I can't do this anymore," She says finally, and I fear my face is going to break because of my wide grin.

Today was an exceptional day to visit Oliver Queen. He killed me, but I get to see his heart break once again.

But as quickly as it came, the grin is wiped off my face in a matter of seconds.

Because only a few seconds is needed for Felicity Smoak to cross the distance that separates her and Oliver and kiss him, wrapping her arms around his neck and tugging him closer to her.

Do people goodbye kiss?

Oliver, for the first time, pulls away, "Felicity...I don't...I don't understand."

She smiles softly, caressing his face with her hands, "I can't do this anymore. I can't be with you every single moment of my day and pretend that I'm still mad at you, or that I don't want to be with you. I'm so tired of waking up and not seeing you, and I hate living in the loft without you. I'm so tired of being without you."

What?

My mood sours, even more, when I see the glistening hope on Oliver's face, the hope that I thought had washed away when I killed Laurel Lance, "But...I thought...I thought that you couldn't..."

He's as speechless as I am because this wasn't supposed to happen. Oliver Queen was supposed to lose Laurel Lance to death, John Diggle to the army, Thea Queen to her soul, and suffer every day with Felicity Smoak by his side and not being able to love her, watching her move on and fall in love with another man.

Felicity scoffs in response to his hesitance, "We're still doing the exact same thing we were doing in Ivy Town up until we broke up except for the fact that you leave the loft at 12 am to sleep and I don't have your mother's ring on my finger." She falters for a moment as if a thought suddenly struck her, "Unless, you...don't and I just walked here and kissed you when you don't want this or...or...are you seeing someone?"

I roll my eyes. For someone who claims to be a genius, that was an exceptionally stupid thought; Oliver Queen loving anyone else.

He shuts her up with a kiss and I internally gag at the bright smile on their faces, even as Oliver whispers, "I have never stopped loving you, Felicity Smoak."

The swirling black hole comes for me just then, and the next thing I know is that I'm once again stuck in this cold, dark abyss.

And while I wish, I'd never gone to spy on Oliver Queen. Even though I wish that I had stayed well put and spent the rest of eternity thinking that I had taken everything away from the man, I know that some part of me is glad I went there.

It cleared my confusion as to how Oliver Queen was able to summon light magic, when his totem, his light, and his weakness left him.

She didn't.

This has nothing to do with Oliver and everything to do with Felicity Smoak and her incapability of ever letting go of him.

She loves him too much to leave him. Doing that just ensures pain for her, and suffering for the both of them. Felicity loves Oliver to an extent that she'll never leave his side, even when she's hurt and lost and confused; she'll keep loving him because loving him is the only thing that feels sane to her.

Loving Ruvè was the only tangible thing in my life. Yes, I placed power over her, but that didn't make my love for her any less weak than the love she had for me. She kept coming back even when I messed up, because she was willing to make it work; she wasn't willing to live without me.

I should have known Felicity Smoak would be no different.

"THERE IS ALWAYS GOING TO BE THAT ONE PERSON IN YOUR LIFE THAT YOU CAN'T WALK AWAY FROM EVEN IF YOU KNOW YOU HAVE TO"

Felicity Smoak will never be able to walk away from Oliver Queen. Not knowing that was Damien Darhk's greatest mistake.