The second part of my finale fic – Oliver, Felicity and William are trying to adjust to their new normal.
Thank you so much for the beta MISSYriver. A betas whose work is often overlooked but essential to almost any story.
FELICITY
Felicity's had enough.
She is tired of having to look at her husband's black and blue face, is sickened by his limping gait as he tries to smile through the cut on his lip, trying to assure her.
It had been less than a month and Oliver's already been jumped and beaten three times in the past two weeks. And not just any regular beatings either, but full-blown targeted attacks aiming to maim or outwardly kill him. Reading about them in the detached, clinical tone of the prison's incident and medical records had her stomach heaving with fear and disgust.
Of course, she had to do something. There is no way he would last much longer in this state. Just because he was incarcerated didn't mean it was open season on his life. No matter if her husband was a criminal – which he was not, by her standards at least – he had a right to serve out his sentence unharmed.
And because nobody was doing a single thing about it, Felicity took the task upon herself.
The Warden is a tall, muscular man in his fifties. A little loose around the middle, since his desk job doesn't require physical activity, but she knows he has a background in the military. From what Felicity has gathered, he is a strict and by-the-book but overall decent man. He is also stubborn and arrogant as hell and nothing Felicity has said in the past couple of minutes has really sunken in.
Warden Henderson only gives her a slightly impatient and exasperated sigh at her last complaint, but when he addresses her from behind his heavy wooden desk, he keeps his tone even and placating. Which serves to infuriate Felicity further.
"I understand your concerns, Mrs. Queen-"
"It's Smoak." Felicity cuts across icily, "I kept my name."
She doesn't even know why it is important to assert the fact she had kept her own name, maybe it's important she be viewed as her own person. Or maybe it has to do with the fact the Warden addressed her like another overbearing wife of an inmate he is forced to placate on a regular basis.
Which is a blatant lie, because Felicity had to scratch and claw her way in to get a meeting with the Warden, so she knows this is far from a regular occurrence. The only way she would see the Warden was to threaten the prison board with lawyers, lawsuits and going public with cruelty to inmates. She didn't care at this point and was willing to do anything to finally get her a visit.
A visit that hasn't yielded any results so far.
"Okay. Miss Smoak, then," Warden Henderson concedes amicably. It doesn't make her feel any better, he still clearly doesn't understand the gravity of her visit. "I'll be blunt. I don't know what kind of summer camp you think we are running here, but this is a supermax prison. And inmates get into conflicts or fights. Accidents happen-"
"You call what's happening to my husband accidents? I might not be a DOC officer but even I know it's not normal when one of your charges spends more time in the infirmary than in his cell block."
"I understand that you, as his wife, are upset-"
"Excuse me?! How could I not be upset?!"
"Miss Smoak-"
"He's been here less than a month and he already has three broken ribs, six lacerations that needed more than five stitches each, a hairline fracture to his wrist and a concussion. And that's only stating the injuries he has been treated for. If you actually took the time and looked at the state of him, you might be upset at what has been going on in your own prison as well."
His eyes narrow at her and Felicity doesn't like the sheen of suspicion glinting in his dark irises. "Those are very specific facts you stated, Miss Smoak. I am not aware our prison gives out detailed information about inmate's medical health."
Frak.
Realizing that in her fury she let it slip she had information she wasn't supposed to know – information she illegally pulled from his prison medical records – she backpedals immediately.
Taking a calming breath, her tone lowers to cold steel. "Warden, I am sure you are aware inmates are allowed to make phone calls. As I am sure you have someone monitoring those phone calls. My husband and I have a close relationship and we share information."
She finishes with an off-hand shrug, but inwardly she shakes like a leaf about her stupid slip. Because if the Warden pulls the phone recordings – recordings that very much exists for each and every inmate in this place – she's screwed.
Oliver hasn't as much as uttered a single word to her during their evening calls, but she could always hear it in his voice anyway, something was off. She saw the bruises, she saw how tenderly he was holding himself, and it broke her heart when he wouldn't speak about it even as she understood why he wouldn't. Yet she needed to know. So she pulled his prison file, quickly finding not just one but a wide number of incidents involving her husband.
She hadn't even been informed. Apparently, if your life isn't threatened on a regular basis, the family doesn't need to know.
She saw Oliver go through all kind of things during the six years she knew him and is aware there is so much more she has yet to know about the five years that preceded that but reading through the files and see with her own eyes what was happening to him now, in the care of state, after all he has done for the people of Star City, leaves her sick to the stomach. Not only what actually happens to him, physically, but that it is clearly tolerated by the staff.
She holds the Wardens gaze, lets her anger and distaste show, her gaze like steel as she waits for the result of her gamble with bated breath.
The Warden looks at her for a second more, then lets is pass with a subconscious wave of his hand. "Anyway, miss Smoak," at least he gets her name right, this time, "I understand your husband's situation doesn't look good from the outside. But you have to understand that this is not a nice place and people who end up here are hardened criminals who are sent here to serve their punishments. Ex-billionaire or mayor aside, your husband is now one of them and we have to treat him the same way as any other inmate. As my late mamma used to say, don't lie with dogs if you don't want to catch fleas."
The hot flash of fury momentarily leaves Felicity speechless. And afraid. Because if this is how the Warden, the number one man of this facility, looks at the problem, then Oliver is done.
She's made enough of a background check on Henderson to know he is clean. He is not a bad man, per se, just an ignorant one, too self-assured and bigheaded to see the heart of the issue. With this attitude, he might just as well be dirty, but either way, it gets her husband killed.
She momentarily wishes she found dirt on him, getting herself some leverage. It would be so much easier.
There is one more bargaining chip she has, but it's a huge gamble, playing on the man's integrity and pride, a trait that has come up quite often when she read his reports from his military academy days up until his last mental assessment for his promotion as Warden at Slabside.
She is not stupid, she's done her homework. But even if it's a gamble she'd rather not use, the man doesn't give her much choice.
"With all due respect, Warden, you and I both know that what is happening to my husband behind the walls of your prison is not the simple doing of inmates."
She strikes a nerve because he takes a surprised breath, eyes narrowing, grip tightening on the pen he is holding.
"Miss Smoak, what exactly are you insinuating here?" His voice is quiet and somewhat threatening, yet even as he speaks, his eyes cut to the CO present in the room with them – the one who has escorted her in – before they quickly return back to her.
Her eyes never waver from his, one eyebrow slowly rising in challenge, letting him know she means every single word.
Without taking his eyes off her, the Warden speaks to the CO. "Officer Scott, could you please wait outside for Miss Smoak?" Scott leaves the room within seconds and they are left alone.
"Okay, Miss Smoak, I am listening."
Felicity hasn't really planned on this situation, but she's finally – finally – got the Warden's full attention, and she is not letting the chance go.
"Warden, with all due respect, we both know these are not random attacks or typical inmate brawls that get quickly broken apart by guards on site. As you very correctly stated, this is a supermax prison, so not a single thing happens here without your guard's knowledge. If anybody as much as makes a move, they are there within seconds with their firearms trained on the inmate's head. And yet, my husband's body is marred with fresh burns and cut marks that mean-" her voice quivers, stomach rolling, "he's clearly been subject to prolonged torture while being inside. Don't you dare telling me your guards don't know. Just as bad, if they truly don't, then I ask you, what kind of shop are you running here?" She throws his own words at him before she delivers her last blow, "And even worse, what kind of shop are you running here if they do?"
And finally – finally – something registers on his face, a slight twitch in his jaw, his eyes grave on her, pondering her words.
"Don't let anything happen to my husband you could have easily prevented, Warden, because God help me, there won't be much left of this place once I am through with you."
It's way past lunch when she collapses – bone-deep tired – onto the sofa at the loft, dropping her feet to the coffee table, head falling at the back of the couch. She's left early for Slabside, in fact so early it was Raisa who had to bring William to school that morning, and she is dead on her feet. Her visit with the Warden and the seven hours spent in the car didn't help the massive budding headache that's been threatening the past couple of days and she can feel it finally starting at the back of her head, creeping up her neck to pound inside her skull.
A shadow falls over her face, a presence looming over her and she gives a start before she realizes it's Curtis, his large frame hovering over the couch.
"Geez, Curtis, you nearly gave me a heart attack."
He frowns. "Sorry, I thought you were aware I was here."
And yeah, no. She wasn't. But she should. Of course he is here; he freaking works here.
"Sorry," she murmurs, but he waves her apologies away, walking around the couch and dropping down onto the table near her feet.
"Here," he offers her a mug of steaming coffee and God – yes – coffee! She grabs for it, takes a hasty gulp before her tired brain makes the necessary connection and with her mouth already burned, she spits the coffee back into the mug.
"Frach! What the 'ell, 'urtis!?" she curses, using her hand to fan her tongue.
"Well, I wasn't- You just went for- I mean, it was pretty obvious the coffee was-" Curtis looks lost and more than a little scared of her and okay, okay, she might be overreacting a little but she just had a terrible morning and she could really use an easy day. Doesn't mean she has to vent her frustrations on Curtis, though.
"Never mind," she waves away his concern, sighing. She puts the mug on the table, massaging her cramped up calves as she waits for the coffee to cool.
She absolutely hates driving.
Curtis is silently observing her, concern written all over his face. "So how did it go at Slabside?"
Anger and frustration burn hot and fresh again. "To be honest, I have no idea if I got anywhere with the Warden. I mean, yeah, he looked like he would give Oliver's situation a thought, but for all I know, his assurances could have been merely that – empty promises. At least he seemed to ponder what I said about the guard's involvement, so I guess I should be thankful for that, right?" even she can hear the bitterness in her tone. "I don't know. We will have to see if anything changes or-"
She doesn't finish, because she doesn't need to. If nothing changes, sooner or later, she will be picking up her husband in a body bag.
Her eyes fall shut and she lets her calves be, her back hitting the couch again. The tiredness and sudden despair force tears she absolutely won't let fall into her eyes. "I, uhm…"
Curtis's fingers close around her wrist in quiet support, and she lets him, even if it's not what she needs right now. What she needs is the assurance her husband is gonna be okay, something no one can give her however, so she has to settle for what she gets.
They sit there in silence for quite a while. Felicity tries to regain her composure and wills the headache to go away, her eyes closed so she doesn't have to look at Curtis, unable to withstand the look she's sure she would find in his eyes now.
She detests pity. Pity has never solved anything.
Her phone rings and she is glad for the interruption, until she sees the caller ID. She picks up on the second ring, her heart picking up its pace.
"Hello?...Yes, this is she."
Her eyes close shut, her other hand plastering over her face and she is this close to groan loudly, because come-fucking-on.
"Is he okay?" she asks tensely, gives a couple nods and grunts of agreement. "Alright. I'll be there as soon as I can," she finishes tersely before finishing the call.
She looks at the screen for a long time after the call has ended, until Curtis's soft inquiry brings her out of her reverie.
"That was William's school. I have to go pick him up." She offers no more and Curtis must see she is close to her breaking point, because he doesn't prod any further.
The drive takes her twenty minutes. Twenty minutes she spends fortifying herself for whatever she is about to encounter while wondering how much more until she can't take any more.
She tries to prepare herself, but she is not prepared for what awaits her at the other side of the principal's office door.
"Oh my God!" She lets out in horror, crossing the room in a few quick strides towards William, who is sitting in a chair across the principal's desk, looking small and absolutely miserable. She reaches for him but he flinches back, so she lets her hands hover over the sides of his head, hesitant to touch.
"What the hell happened to your face?"
It's black and blue, one eye completely closed shut, dried blood covering his shirt from what appears to be a mangled nose and a split lip.
"Mrs Queen," she hears the principal's voice from behind her and God help her, if one more person calls her Mrs Queen today, it will be the last thing they ever do.
"It's Smoak," she says furiously, turning her head to fix the principal with a stern look. The woman, at least, has the decency to look flustered. "I am sorry miss Smoak-"
"How could you have let this happen?" Felicity fumes before she looks back to William, checking him for more injuries.
"I am sorry, Felicity," William hesitates in a small voice, the single eye she can see turned downwards, but she won't have any of it. With her hands still framing William's head protectively, her head swivels to address the principal over her shoulder.
"He was perfectly fine when he left this morning. School is supposed to be a safe place-"
"Miss Smoak-"
"Felicity-"
"-and this is how you return my kid to me at the end of the day?" She is seething.
"Miss Smoak!" this time, the principal's voice doesn't leave room for an argument and she finally falls silent. "I am not happy about the situation either, but you need to know it was William who started the fight."
Her mind goes blank for the shortest of moments, before a shocked chuckle leaves her lips, "No way!" she defends, "That's not William! He'd never-"
But even as she says it, William is tugging on her hands, calling her name urgently, his voice muffled as he obviously has trouble breathing through his nose, "I did, Felicity. I did punch first."
Her mouth falls open at that, her eyes landing on William in disbelief and no small amount of disappointment and then back to the principal, who is looking at Felicity like they are finally getting somewhere.
"Oh," she utters.
"Miss Smoak, would you now be so kind and sit down so we can talk about this like adults? I understand you are upset-" an understatement of the century, "-but as you surely know, the school takes violence between students very seriously. I understand you and William are going through a difficult time at the moment, but we really need to discuss how this kind of behavior is absolutely unacceptable."
A week's suspension.
Could have been so much worse, but still.
Felicity can't remember the last time she felt so humiliated in her life. Sitting in a school principal's office and being reprimanded for her own kid picking up a fight felt like the most surreal dream, the situation surely somewhere at the top of her never-gonna-happen-to-me list.
She hasn't said a single word since leaving the school, partly as punishment to William and partly because she doesn't want to deal with him until she gets her emotions under her grip again and comes up with a reasonable plan on how to proceed with this.
But holy fuck, her step-son has picked a fight at school.
The school nurse has assured her William was okay, that it looked worse than it was, nothing was broken and the swelling would go down overnight before she pressed a bag of ice into William's hands and send them on their way, the boy docile behind Felicity, head hanged and the bag of ice pressed against his battered face, while she just wanted to scream right there in the middle of the parking lot.
But she didn't.
And she kept completely silent ever since, her hands gripping the wheel and eyes trained on the road, only occasionally eyeing William from the corner of her eye but otherwise not acknowledging his presence because really, of all the things that could have happened, William turning to his fists instead of his head was the last thing she expected.
It was so unlike him, so out of character, that apart from the anger, Felicity is more confused than anything.
She is not equipped for this. She has been a step-mom less than a year and already she is raising the boy on her own. She has no skills whatsoever to deal with a situation like this.
And yet, here they are.
Arriving home – thank God Curtis made himself scarce, for he is nowhere to be seen – she goes for the simpler task, walking straight to the freezer and taking out a bag of frozen peas. She silently directs William to come sit on the bar stool in the kitchen and he goes without a word, his eyes – well, one eye – still trained on the ground.
He looks just about how she feels. Which says something, because he looks absolutely desolate, the many inches he's grown since the two of them met painfully obvious as he hunches in his seat so they can be at eye-level.
She takes the now melted bag of ice from his limp hands and throws it into the sink, replacing it with the peas gently pressed over his closed eye while her other hand slowly pokes and prodds William's face, wanting to assess the damage for herself.
The scene is eerily familiar to Felicity, and yet so very foreign. Because William is a child and despite the fact that she's patched up his dad enough times to know William's is going to be okay, it feels all sorts of wrong.
William hisses and groans occasionally, but otherwise stays still, as if accepting his punishment, his single eye looking at her guiltily from behind his long lashes. He is miserable, she can tell, and something inside her melts further at the devastated look in his face.
"I am so sorry," he whimpers, the words barely making it past his lips and before Felicity knows what's happening, William is crying with his face pressed against the crook of her neck, his whole frame shaking with sobs.
"I am sorry," he hiccups, "I didn't mean to!"
William sobs and Felicity instantly pulls him closer, cradling his wiry frame to her, a little shocked and definitely at a loss as to what to do with him.
She thought she would need to play the tough-parent card today, but it looks like William is beating himself up enough as it is and things might not be as simple as that.
Felicity cradles him some more, swaying with him on the spot. She lets him have this moment and only after he's somewhat composed does she lead him to the couch to talk.
"Wanna tell me what happened?" she asks him in a quiet yet grave voice.
His look is so pure, so honest, regret swimming behind his eyes, and in that moment, he reminds her so much of Oliver, it steals her breath away. "I deserved it. I punched first."
"Okay." She exhales, her voice shaky. She reaches out, her hand caressing his shoulder, then following the path of his arm until her hand slips into his, offering comfort while trying to win some time finding the right words to respond.
"First of all, I don't care that you punched first, the way your face looks, you definitely didn't deserve a response like that."
For a moment, Oliver's own black and blue face from two weeks ago swims to her mind, but she quickly pushes the image away.
"Secondly, it doesn't really explain why you felt the need to punch anybody. I thought you knew better than that, Will," she offers in gentle reproach, cocking her head to the side to catch his eyes.
"I just wanted them to stop."
"Stop who? Doing what?" she prods.
"There is this group at school. They like to follow me around, corner me somewhere and then taunt me. They talk awful things about dad, about how prison might be for him, about how he deserves it. How he is a murderer and how I am going to turn out just like him."
"Oh, Will," she can't help herself, this time her hands reach up to cradle his face. "I am sorry, hunny. But I thought we talked about this. I told you, we could change schools, you could get home-schooled-"
"But that's not what I want!" He argues a little too forcefully, hands clenching into fists as he tries to get his frustration under control and Felicity's hands fall away. "That's what cowards do," he adds stubbornly.
What she hears, though, is: This is not what my father would have done. She doesn't like the sound of it.
"Okay, fair enough." She says, letting it slide and forcing a breath through her nose. She knows better than to argue with a teenager, so she goes for the obvious heart of the problem instead.
"But you obviously can't go around school beating up your schoolmates. There are always going to be mean kids, there are always going to be people who make it their mission in life to make your own harder."
"I know!" William cries impatiently. "I just wanted to see if dad was right."
The cogs in her head come to a screeching halt. "What? Right about what?"
William looks distinctly uncomfortable when he finally spills the beans. "Dad once told me, that if anybody was bothering me, I should go for the biggest guy in the group and punch him in the nose and the whole group would leave me alone."
She gawks at William, her voice rising and octave as she let out a disbelieving screech. "Oliver did what!?"
She is going to kill that idiot of a husband herself.
"I just thought I would give it a try," William says, shrugging helplessly.
"Doesn't look like it worked out for you, did it?" Felicity asks coldly.
"He was big. My punch didn't even cause a nosebleed. Before I knew, he was pushing me to the ground and pummeling my face," William admits with a fair dose of embarrassment.
She doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry. She feels like both.
"Will, honey, since when is taking interpersonal advice from your dad a good idea? I hate to tell you, but your dad's idea of dealing with any emotional issue over the past couple of years was always to beat the crap out of punching bag. Or criminals running around town, whichever came first. It might be effective to clean up the streets of crooks, but that's not the best way to go around your daily life, trust me."
William looks at her sheepishly and yeah, she is definitely going to kill Oliver for this. What the hell was he even thinking, giving this sweet kid such a ridiculous idea?
"Okay William, I am going to tell you something you probably won't like, but you need to hear it. Sweetheart, you are not your father. You will never be your father."
His eyes fall away and for a moment, he looks crestfallen, so she takes his face into her hands again, directing it towards her to deliver her point. "I won't allow it."
That puzzles him, his brow furrowing before letting out a painted grunt, and his cute confusion makes her smile.
"I love your dad, William. I love him with all of my heart. But do you honestly think the part I love about him best is the beating up people and being the tough guy? Hell no. He does those things because they are necessary in his line of work and the people he deals with, not because he likes them. Yes. He's killed people. There was a time when he thought that was necessary too, but he outgrew that part of him – outgrew himself – resorting to less drastic and only absolutely necessary methods. He allowed himself to feel something and with it, his gentle side, his funny side, the warm and caring and nurturing side came to shine through and that's the part I fell in love with. I fell in love with a man who would come home to me early from work to cook me dinner, a man to tuck me in bed and bring me soup when I had the flu. Who would hold me as I bawled my eyes out watching a sad movie. A man with a tight grip but a gentle heart. Being the Green Arrow is who he is, it's a part of his identity, and don't get me wrong, I love that part too, in fact, I love all of his parts. I just love the father-husband-friend part most. And that one part – the one that's the very and most genuine part of him – doesn't want you to follow in his footsteps, William. He wants you to be your own man, your own person. Your dad became the Green Arrow because of his own father's legacy, to right his own father's wrongs, and it's a hard and dangerous path to walk, one your dad has chosen for himself. But not one he wants to leave for his own son. He wants you to pick your own path." She watches William closely for his reaction, because she absolutely needs to push this point across.
"Do you understand, Will?"
He watches her for a long time and she can see her words swirling in his head as he makes sense of them, but after a long while, he finally nods.
"So no more fights, okay? That's not you. That's not me either. And that's okay." He silently nods before he closes the distance between them and envelops her in another hug.
"Thank you, Felicity," he murmurs against her throat.
"For what?" she asks, once again surprised by the spurt of his sudden affection.
"For being you."
That night, she doesn't have a problem falling asleep. They have a quiet evening, watching a movie while she ices Williams face and pulls jokes about his backfired attempt to earn some street-cred at school.
It's still dark outside and she sleeps deep, so it takes a couple of rings for her to register it's her phone. Sleepily, she grabs for it, not even looking at the ID.
"Yeah," she murmurs drowsily.
"Felicity? Hello, it's Jean. Sorry to wake you this early, but I am afraid I have some bad news."
She barely manages to listen to the end of what Oliver's lawyer has to say before she darts to the bathroom door, her stomach rolling. She is just in time to make it to the toilet before she vomits.
OLIVER
He is already in the room when she enters, her heels resonating inside the steel and concrete walls of the visitations room. It's a strange sound inside these walls, but Oliver doesn't have time to dwell on that much, because he's drinking her in, taking all he can read off of her without wasting a second of their already limited time together. He hasn't seen her in a little over two weeks.
There is something about her, the way she is holding herself rigidly, the lack of a smile on her face, no usual warm greeting when she sits down across from him. She just stares at him, eyes brittle and lips tightly pressed together, expectant and obviously upset.
She knows. Well, of course she does, he already knew as much. During each medical emergency that requires an inmate's transfer to a local hospital the lawyer or a family relative is contacted.
So he knew she'd be informed, but that's not it.
He didn't call her. He couldn't, wasn't allowed, not from the hospital and not the infirmary either, from where he was released only this morning. He would be released to gen-pop later today and he was already preparing himself mentally for the call home later, but here she was, sitting across from him, as if she knew exactly when he would be released back to general population and-
His eyes fall momentarily shut. Well of course she did.
And from the look of her now, she is absolutely livid.
He thinks he has an idea what this is about and he shifts nervously in his chair, the additional movement making his body go rigid with pain.
"I'm fine," he starts meekly, trying to placate her already, because an angry Felicity is something he usually wouldn't want to encounter on a good day.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" The harsh tone cuts him deeper than the words itself, and it strikes him momentarily speechless.
"You are anything but fine, Oliver, so spare me the mollifying speech."
His eyes fall shut again, because he is tired, and he hurts, and he can't speak to her when she's looking at him like that. With brittle anger and silent accusation masking the sickening worry so clearly written all over her.
"I couldn't do anything," he utters quietly.
"So you got yourself stabbed fighting another inmate's battles instead?" The amount of disbelieving anger in her tone is alarming, her voice growing louder with incredulity.
He tries to explain, willing her to understand. "There is a kid here, Felicity, really young. He is a meta a he made some bad choices in life and they make it really hard on him-"
"You are not kidding," she realizes, being genuinely appalled now.
"He. Is. A. Kid, Felicity-"
"I don't care!" she shouts indignantly, making heads turn, but her eyes are a hard line trained solely on him.
It takes him off guard, that she means it. She genuinely doesn't care. His back hits the chair hard, the searing pain in his side making him hiss.
"You've got a child yourself, Oliver. A child I had to cradle to sleep like a baby last week because he couldn't stop crying about his father almost getting killed in here!"
The implication of her words combined with the visual image make him flinch.
"He is not even twenty-" he tries again, but the noise she makes stops him mid-sentence.
"Oliver," She is looking at him like she doesn't recognize him, as if he grew a second head. He feels a little hurt by that, because he is trying to tell her he actually did something good for somebody last week.
"Do you-" she starts, her words falling off as she contemplates him, the suppressed hurt making her voice tremble, "Do you have any idea-" she gulps, tries again, "-any idea what it feels like to get that call?"
Cold sweat trickles down his spine now, and it has nothing to do with his barely healed injury. "Do you have any idea how that feels when your spouse's lawyer calls you, wakes you from your sleep because it's not even a reasonable hour yet, to tell you your husband has gotten into a fight in prison-"
"Felicity," he tries.
"and got himself stabbed-"
"Felicity," he calls her name a bit louder.
"and is lying with a punctured lung in a prison infirmary waiting for a transfer to the nearest hospital? Do you have any idea how it feels not to know when, and where, and how, and if? If they are going to make it? Can you even imagine? Can you imagine having to wake your son and break the news to him? To spend the next couple of hours on the phone futilely trying to find out how you are and then actually having to-" she drops her voice to an angry whisper, "hack your way into a hospital IT network to pull your medical data in order to find out whether you are going to make it?"
She doesn't speak further. It's enough. She's said enough.
She sits there in silence, letting him stew in it, conjure up the mental images of what she has been going through over the past week. The accusation, the reproach in her eyes, is too much for him and he has to look away.
"I didn't plan on getting stabbed. It was, in fact, an accident-" he tries to reassure her, but she lets out a small derisive scoff, and again, he is taken aback, because he has a hard time associating the mirthless sound with his wife.
"God, Oliver. Only you-" she hisses, but she doesn't finish her sentence.
He waits, contemplating how to make her understand that this was an exception, that he really couldn't stand by this time.
"The kid," he starts and he finds it a good sign when she doesn't interrupt him. "He reminds me of William. It could be William in a couple of years-"
She scoffs at that. "Not if I have any say in it, he won't. Not that he isn't trying," she adds on an afterthought.
That's not what he meant and what?
"Also, did you instruct William to punch other kids in the nose when having a disagreement? Is that your idea of good parenting?"
Her verbal punches are coming from all sides and with his mind still slightly muddled from the painkillers, he has a hard time following her.
"What did I do now?" He asks dumbly, but then something clicks, a distant memory of a conversation he had with William in the back of a limousine, back when it was all so complicated between him and his son. "Well- I once told him what he had to do to protect himself."
"Are you insane?" She hisses. "Protect himself? I was called to school to pick up William last week for starting a fight with a schoolmate."
"What?" His head is spinning now, and he has a hard time discerning if it's the information or if maybe he should have stayed a couple of days longer at the infirmary as advised.
"He was sporting a shiner, his right eye closed-shut and he looked like a punch-drunk racoon."
She falls silent after that and he stays quiet as well, trying to process everything she's said with her words and even more that she hasn't.
When he finally looks at her again, she looks utterly miserable, giving him a helpless look and only now does he see the dark shadows beneath her eyes she obviously tried to mask with makeup.
"I can't do this, Oliver." She utters, "Not like this." Something in her look breaks and chips away, her eyes swimming with tears and the sight of her, so utterly beaten, breaks his heart.
He wants so badly to comfort her. Say the right words. But he has none.
His eyes seek out hers, beseeching her to give him more, reveal more, because he is as lost here as she is out there. Something in her look softens, her hands twitching on the table before she clasps them together, her fingers coming to play with her wedding band, twisting it around her finger over and over again.
A nervous habit he is quite familiar with by now.
"When I agreed to marry you," she starts, a tone more measured, her eyes suddenly shining with a warmth he hasn't seen for quite some time, "I meant it. All the way, for better or for worse. For life. Not just the convenient portion of it. But God, this is just so damn hard. Have you and not have you at all. Everywhere I look these days, there are fires I have to put out, and it's just too much sometimes."
It's close to an apology for her outburst, her supposed inaptitude, but she shouldn't. God, she should absolutely never apologize to him for feeling overwhelmed by the burden he put on her.
"I am sorry," he offers instead, almost inaudibly, and for a moment, he doesn't even know which part he is apologizing for, because there is just so much he should be apologizing for. His head is spinning, but he needs to find a solution, a temporary fix, because she is right. She absolutely can't go on like this.
"Alright," he murmurs, "Don't worry. I will call William tonight, I'll talk to him, explain that is not what I meant-"
"Already taken care of." She interrupts him, waving her hand. "He won't start anything anytime soon, I assure you."
There is something in her voice, the absolute certainty with which she proclaims that that makes him wonder.
What happened? How did Felicity approach the issue? How did the two of them handle it? Was she stern with William? Was she emphatic?
There is no doubt in his mind she did well – so well – by his son. What he feels sorry about is that he wasn't there in the first place. There is still so much yet he doesn't know about their family and he should be there for these things. It should be him to scold and reprimand his son, him who suggested a movie and popcorn afterward, him to put ice on his son's black eye.
He knows his wife does it better, always has with William. She has that kind of easy parental intuition he never seemed to find. Felicity has his full trust. And yet, he should have been there.
It makes him feel robbed. Of his time with his family, the experiences, good and bad, of the chance to be the parental presence in his son's life William's never had.
"Tell me what I can do," he begs, because there must be something, anything, he can do for his wife and son, even from behind the bars.
Felicity's look softens, but the twitch in her hands stays.
"I will tell you exactly what to do, Oliver. Right now, you have a single job. One. And that is staying alive in here. No more crazy shit." She is deadly serious.
"I am sorry I got stabbed," he utters. His side throbs with pain again, the painkillers starting to wear off.
"I understand, Oliver. Trust me, I do. I know you. I. Know. You." His wife says, emphasizing each word. "I of all people have a deep understanding of your compulsive need to help those who are in need. Even at your own expense."
His eyes fall down at her words. Because more times than he can count, it was her expanse as well.
"But Oliver, I need you to finally start prioritizing what's important in your life. And right now, your priority should be the well-being of your son and wife. And the only thing you can do for us is stay alive. I've seen you take on dozens of men under that hood. You have survived worse things than this prison and it's time you showed them who you really are. And what you are really capable of. Do everything in your ability to defend yourself, but don't go out looking for fights. This is not a place for heroes. So stay alive."
Her tone is hard, but her voice trembles in the end and he understands it now, sees what it cost her to hold herself together, holding onto her anger so the fear wouldn't take over, but only now does he truly see how very rattled she is. How helpless she must feel, being on the outside, never knowing and always wondering.
He gets it.
He just doesn't know how to fix it. Because it's against his nature to look away. Loving Felicity, being a father to William made him a better man. And now he doesn't know anymore how to not step in when he sees what's happening around here. But he also can't continue to do this to his son and wife.
Oliver sits here, contemplating all the life choices that have lead him here, how not even Lian Yu could prepare him for this sense of absolute, hopeless powerlessness, when a sudden jolt of warmth spreads across his hand, enveloping it, warm and familiar fingers squeezing his own in support.
They do a full body search on him after her visit – because they can, because it's another form of humiliation. It's one of the guards he has a particular dislike for, the guard that usually stands by and watches while he is outnumbered and beaten.
"So, Queen, when does your wife's finally come for a conjugal visit? That is one hot piece of ass."
Never, is his instant thought.
If he has any say in it, she will never set foot in this place and be subjected to what he knows will be a humiliating search accompanied by randy looks of sleazy guards undressing her with their eyes, already imagining what she is here for. He knows how the CO's look at that kind of visits – in their mind, what decent woman would willingly involve herself with a lowlife criminal like the inmates of Slabside, which ultimately leads them to the simple conclusion that any such woman must be a common whore.
He absolutely won't stand for it. She already has to deal with the public shaming of the whole of Star City – being the wife of the disgraced mayor, slash vigilante.
He won't subject her to this, even if that could win them more time together and grant them at least some amount of privacy in between these walls. But the cost is not worth his selfish gain and he is glad the topic hasn't come up yet between the two of them.
Officer Bradley is continuing his search accompanied by his continuous dirty rant about Felicity, taunting him, because that's just what bored COs do for entertainment in a place like this.
He doesn't bite, even as his insinuations make his stomach churn and fists clench, for only now – mere minutes ago, in fact – he promised his wife he would behave himself and attacking a CO out of spite wouldn't go well in her book.
So he merely grunts when Bradley brushes his fingers somewhere where they definitely don't belong. Lets the man have his fun because what Bradley doesn't know is the company he and his wife are keeping. With a satisfactory image of John Diggle smashing the man's skull against the pavement if Oliver told him Bradley so as much as looked wrong at Felicity, Oliver stands still and docile as the man's hands continue to frisk him.
"She wears pretty skimpy dresses, your wife," Bradley says, finishing his search at last and coming to stand in front of Oliver. His face pulling into a nasty grimace when his words don't get him the reaction he was hoping for.
"I bet she likes it rough," and that almost – almost – brings a smile to Oliver's lips. As clichés goes, Bradley is definitely a poster boy for those. The man has no idea – will never have any idea – how it is between him and Felicity. How good it can be. He almost feels sorry for a man working low wage dealing day and night with criminals who still get visits from women, he will never even lay a finger on the outside world.
"Does she like you to fuck her in the ass?" Bradley tries one more time.
"You'll never know. Now am I allowed to go, officer?" Oliver grits out, because despite his high horse, even he has his limits and the insinuations are slowly starting to rub him raw.
"She a hellcat, your wife. Saw her last week, right before you got stabbed. Storming straight into the Warden's office, all spit and fire."
Oliver's heart stops before it restarts beating wildly in his chest again.
"She had a long and cozy talk with the Warden behind closed doors."
His side is still burning from the stabbing. So is his chest, but for a whole other reason, because what? Felicity has been here to see the fucking Warden? And that was over a week ago?
"Apparently, she came snitching about your little boo-boos," Bradley says derisively. His hand comes up to grab Oliver's side and twists. Oliver sees white, his knees buckling a little and an involuntary groan of pain leaving his lips. His incision is still not completely healed and Bradley knows this.
He snickers, his face now so close to Oliver's, he can smell his foul breath on him. "I wonder what kind of services she had to provide for her little favor. Heard the door stayed closed pretty long…"
But he isn't listening to Bradley anymore as the officer leads him back to his cell, his mind racing.
Because he doesn't doubt it, not one second. It's absolutely something Felicity would do, fighting her way directly into the Warden's office and demand answers for all the injuries he sustained in the past couple of weeks.
God, Felicity.
She is watching out for him, as she always does, even from outside of these walls. He is once again put to shame by her care and commitment to him. It also makes her fury with him earlier today so much more understandable.
She went to the fucking Warden so they would lay off of him. Only for him to go and involve himself willingly into a fight of somebody else. No wonder she was livid, he practically undermined everything she tried to do with his actions.
Momentary worry seizing him, because there is absolutely no doubt in Oliver's mind she didn't come without a plan, without a way to reach a goal once she set her mind on it. He only hopes she hasn't done anything too stupid, hasn't incriminated herself in the process of trying to protect his stupid ass. He knows for a fact she keeps tabs on him by pulling his incident and medical records from the Slabside servers. She didn't need to tell him, he knew by the way her eyes hungrily roamed over his body during each of her visits, eyes always resting a little longer at the places where his clothes were hiding the newest additions to his vast collection of wounds. Wounds he didn't tell her about because he just didn't want to add to her worry.
He goes straight to his cell, walks to the small metal table next to his bunk he claimed as his own, over which hangs a small collection of pictures and letters pinned to the wall. He finds the one photograph with his wife he has from their time spent traveling the world.
It seems like a lifetime ago, but he recreates the feeling from that moment, the absolutely giddy happiness he felt that summer with her. Not a single worry in their little world they created around themselves. Just them, freshly in love – well, not exactly, he's been in love with her long before then – and their new relationship blossoming. He couldn't believe it then either, how easy it could be with her. How easy they could be together, clicking effortlessly together on so many levels, working perfectly like a well-greased machine.
How simple life seemed back then.
His forehead falls against the wall and he takes a few hasty breaths to get his breathing under control again. He wonders how he could have fucked up such a simple thing so spectacularly.
Right now, he can't fathom doing this another month, what made him think he could do this for years? Possibly the rest of his life?
"Mr. Queen?" comes the timid voice from behind him. It's Renley, the boy he saved from the attack, standing in the doorway of his open cell door, looking at him uneasily.
Mr. Queen. Wow, that's something he hasn't heard in a while.
"It's Oliver," he says automatically, smiling, because there is something innocent in the face of this kid he just can't help but respond to.
Renley grins. "Alright, Oliver. Would you like to come play a game of cards with me and a couple of the other guys?"
Oliver ponders him, understanding the outstanding offer meaning more than just a simple card game. It offers an alliance. And maybe it's time he got himself some allies in here. He's been fending for himself for too long now, and it hasn't done him any good. If he's going to do this long term, he needs to not do this alone.
In his mind, he sees Felicity beam at him, giving him a thumbs-up, as if he's passed some kind of a test. He shakes his head, chuckling to himself. He doesn't care if he is already partly hallucinating from the pain and weariness or the infirmary drugs slowly leaving his system. Nothing matters, just the fact that his wife is apparently such an integral part of him, his own subconsciousness conjures up reactional images of her on its own volition.
Glad to make at least this imaginary version of his wife happy, he takes a step towards the bars of his cell.
"Renley, I'd really like to."
A/N: Would really like to hear your thoughts, so don't be shy.
