Oliver's had worse weeks.
Right after the Gambit sank. When his mother died. When Thea got run-through by R'as. When Felicity got shot. When they thought Diggle had been killed overseas. When he'd found his pregnant wife unconscious and bleeding from a head wound.
The weeks when they'd sent Ellie away to another time for her own safety. The mere thought of those endless nights still has a dim anxiety gripping his insides, even a year later.
He's had no shortage of bad weeks in his life. And while this week doesn't quite reach those levels, it's quickly climbing the ranks.
If it was just one thing - one moment of the complete mess the last week had been - that would be manageable.
But it's not.
It's losing his reelection campaign to a bitter piece of work whose sole platform seems to be undoing everything he's done in Star City and completely failing to save the 1,526 people who died in a building bombing on his watch, in his city.
It's arguing with Diggle about damn near everything right now, the stress of both Felicity and Lyla being out of town, leaving them with the night jobs they're more than failing at and a handful of children between them.
It's that Felicity's out of town because her mother's diagnosis grows bleaker by the day and that the lawsuit against QI has them holding onto the company by the edge of their fingertips and hearing the stress in his wife's voice any time they talk about any of this.
And, it's the unexpected visit from the adult version of his daughter.
Her arrival had immediately inspired the exact same feelings as the last time he'd seen her. He'd only just gotten his baby back and then she'd been there… warning them of imminent danger and telling them what was being doing to keep her younger self safe. It's not the same this time. The sense of urgency isn't there, but the terror welled before surges up this time, too.
There's a problem with the technology protecting them from Zoom. Again. That alone would have kept him up all night. Combine it with the cluster of everything else happening right now?
It's too much.
He's overwhelmed and exhausted, and God, he just wants a break. A vacation from reality. An escape. But running away doesn't solve anything. He learned that many years ago. It can't cure his mother-in-law or bring back those 1,526 people. It can't take the worry from his wife's voice and it certainly can't bring her home to him.
And it definitely can't keep his kids safe from a madman who tears holes in time.
Oliver feels helpless, like a failure. Each thing that goes wrong chips away at him, leaving him feeling so worn down that all he can manage to do is stay standing. It's like treading water. There's no end in sight and it's taking its toll.
Thankfully, the tachyon-detecting security cameras are working. Ellie checked them herself when she'd stopped by in their time earlier, which had helped put him a little at ease. But only a little. With Zoom an active threat yet again, there's nothing that can truly make him comfortable. Nothing short of killing the son of a bitch could really take the weight off his shoulders entirely, but that had made him feel better. Should Zoom start to rip his way through again - or anyone, really - he'll know.
God, he misses Felicity. She's been gone all of three days and he just wants his wife back in his arms. All of this would be so much more manageable with her here.
But she's not. And right now he has to call her and tell her that the 20-something year old version of their five-year-old daughter traveled back in time a couple of decades to warn them that they might be in danger.
Again.
On the long list of things he doesn't want to do right now, placing this call is at the top. The very last thing he wants is to add more to her plate. There's so much she's dealing with already.
With a groan, Oliver scrubs his face. But Nate's finally asleep, having cried himself out in an exhausted, teething mess, and Ellie's having a tea party with imaginary fairies in her room. It's not like he has a whole lot of windows of opportunity for private conversations these days. Though, now that he's out of the mayor's office, that might change a bit.
Still.
A heavy sigh slips past his lips before he grabs her tablet. It comes to life the instant he touches it and with a few swipes of his finger, he puts the call in.
It takes a few rings to connect, even though he'd texted her he'd be calling a few minutes ago. Each ring has his heart sinking further, his mind racing with the possibilities of why. None of them are good.
The second he sees her beautiful face on the other end, his entire being aches even more to hold her in his arms. Her eyes are puffy and red from crying, and her usually-slick ponytail is haphazard. An involuntary smile pulls at her lips, her shoulders falling in a sigh - like the mere sight of him is enough to make things better, even for a few seconds.
He knows the feeling.
When she whispers, "Hey you," it only highlights how much she's carrying on her shoulders and he wants nothing else but to not have to add to it.
"Hi," he says, smiling softly. It's the first smile away from the kids that feels real in days. "How are you doing?"
"Oh…" She pauses. Her voice is shaky and her eyes grow wet as she admits, "I've been better." It's right about now that he'd be pulling her against his chest, wrapping her up, doing everything he could to carry the burden with her. Felicity presses her hand to her forehead. "Mom is… she's my mom, you know? She's in denial and she's trying to focus on anything else. And I get she needs to process. I do. I get that. But the doctors say they need to start treatment now if she's going to have a fighting chance, and she's just so…" She presses her lips together tightly, tears filling her eyes. Oliver moves towards the tablet, like he can reach through it and help her, but he can't. Felicity blinks before anything can fall. "It's hard. That's all."
"I know it is," Oliver says. It's all he has. "Is she glad you're there, though? Are you glad you're there?"
"I needed to come," Felicity says with a nod. "For me and for her. And Quentin. I want to come home, though." Her voice cracking is the only thing that stops him from saying he wants her to come home, too. "They want to come home. They've been trying to figure out what's been going on with her for months now and I know they miss Star City, but the doctors here… They really are the best. I'd hire them right away and take them with us if their equipment came with them."
"Do you need us to come out there?" Oliver asks before thinking it through. The second he does, his shoulders drop. Because they can't leave. Not when he knows that whatever barrier that's been keeping them safe from Zoom might be malfunctioning. They need to stay here, in the security of their home with its cameras and sensors just in case.
"No," Felicity replies, shaking her head. She looks somewhere away from the tablet. "No, I don't want them to see Mom like this. She's weak and tired and they'd just exhaust her more." Her eyes find his again, a whole new brand of worry filling the gentle lines of her face as she asks, "They're okay?"
"Yeah." Oliver nods. "Nate's working on a tooth, though. He's been pretty crabby about it."
"Oh, poor baby." She touches the screen. "Both of you." That makes Oliver chuckle. Even he can hear how tired he sounds. "I miss them so much. And you," she adds, her voice softening. "I miss you."
"I miss you, too." For a second, Oliver lets his eyes close and he leans back into the sofa. His head falls back as he takes a bone-deep sigh. When he lets it out, he feels how exhausted he is through his entire body. He looks at her for a beat before saying, "It's been a bad week."
"I know," she replies. And she does. Felicity bites her lip a moment before continuing, "We knew you'd lose the election. But I'm so sorry anyhow."
"Yeah," he breathes, running his hand through his hair. That was bad enough, but then… "You heard about the stadium?"
Felicity doesn't have to reply with words at that - the way she returns his gaze tells him that she had heard.
"We tried," he whispers. His voice is strained, raw, and the truth of those two words makes him feel stripped bare. "Digg and I… and Thea, and Roy… But we thought it was at the concert hall, not that damn stadium. By the time we figured it out…"
"It's not your fault, Oliver," Felicity tells him softly. It doesn't help, not like he wants it to, because while he knows that's true on some level, it doesn't feel true. "You can't save everyone. You know that."
"That's what I said to John…" Oliver starts. When he doesn't continue right away, he can tell from the way Felicity's brow knits with concern and an old frustration that she's filling in the blanks. "We can't save everyone. But… two kids from Sara's class were at the game. And he just…" His voice trails off and he shakes his head at the memory. "It's gonna take some time."
Felicity sighs. "Oliver…"
She doesn't seem to know what else to say. Not that he expects her to, something they both know. There's nothing she really can say. Nothing can make this better… nothing will make any of this better. He still has to bring up Zoom. He has to. As much as he'd rather not, he learned the hard way many years ago not to keep things from his wife.
"Ellie stopped by," he says. "About an hour ago."
Felicity freezes, her eyes widening. She knows what he means without having to ask. While they'll always welcome their daughter - at any age, as strange as it might be - her visits from the future always bring bad news.
"What happened?" she asks, a stark panic filling the words.
"The systems she has in place, whatever they are… whatever's keeping him from getting in… They might not be working right."
Felicity stands abruptly, so abruptly that it takes him a second to understand where the hell she went, but then she's moving away from wherever she has her tablet propped. Moving away is a soft term, he realizes, as she half-runs to the generic dresser in her hotel room.
"What are you doing?" he asks as she yanks open one of the drawers.
"Packing," she replies, the word clipped. She pulls out an armful of clothes and tosses them onto the bed. "What does it look like?"
"Honey…"
"No," she suddenly says, standing up tall before she can pull out more. "No, you know what? Screw it." She grabs the clothes and shoves them back into the dresser half-haphazardly, leaving the drawer hanging open before turning back to the tablet. "The hotel can ship my stuff to me. I'll tip them really well…"
"Felicity…"
"Like too well even. I'll be at the airport in half an hour. I just have to say goodbye to my mom and Quentin. Shoes though." Her eyes dart around the room. When she doesn't find them where she thought they were, she pauses, looking lost before she starts looking around a little more frantically. "I need shoes."
"Felicity, we're fine…"
"No, Oliver!" she snaps, spinning back to the tablet abruptly. "That thing is trying to claw through the boundaries of the space-time continuum to kill my baby! That's the actual opposite of fine!"
"Ellie knows," Oliver replies, putting his hands up to calm her. "Grown-up Ellie, I mean. She knows. She's watching and so are both Barrys and I have the alarms set and Thea said she and Roy would be here soon and they'll stay until this gets resolved. Okay?"
Felicity stares at him, a pained look in her eyes. He hates that look. He hates that he put it there, even if it wasn't intentional.
"Nothing's happened," he reiterates. "I just wanted you to know."
"I'm her mother," Felicity says. She looks around the room again, like she has no idea where she is before dropping down on the edge of her mattress. "I'm her mother and last year we lost her for more than a month when this… this monster was after her. And he's still after her, nothing's really changed, and…"
She covers her heart with one hand, and he knows she's right back to those awful weeks when Ellie had been gone. When they hadn't known if she was okay, if she was safe, or if Zoom had found her. They hadn't known anything and it'd been…
Oliver bows his head for a second, gripping the tablet so hard he almost cracks it. He doesn't like thinking about that, although he absolutely does not deny Ellie when she wants to talk about her time there… talk about his mother and the fairy treehouse she'd never gotten to see here. It's the only thing that makes those weeks even slightly bearable.
"I need to see her," Felicity says. "I need to see my little girl. I need to hold her. So that I'm okay."
He more than understands that. Truth be told, there's very little Felicity can do against Zoom physically. They both know that. But the need to see Ellie - to hold her in her arms and stroke her hair and watch over her while she sleeps…
Well, that he gets.
"What about your mom?" Oliver asks, making her flinch. It's a not-so-gentle way to remind her of why she's all the way across the country in the first place.
"She already tried to get me to leave when the election results came in," Felicity says. "She's… she was very adamant." The words are vague, telling Oliver that adamant is a monumental understatement. He knows how bad the two Smoak women are when they're both going at it, and add to that the life-threatening factor of her disease and the high emotions because of that… "She'll understand. And it's Ellie. She gets it. And maybe if I point out how important the relationship is between a mother and her daughter, it'll sink in that I need her to take her treatments seriously… And wow, is that selfish of me or what?"
"It's your mom," he points out. That word has so much emphasis coming from him, in more than one way. Donna has become his mother, on so many levels; he's feeling the grief of her sickness, too. But that isn't all of it. The way he'd lost his own mother, and the regrets around that? It's not something he'll ever fully get over, in spite of the small amount of miraculous closure he'd been granted in the past. And, it's never something he'd wish on his wife. "You're allowed to be a little selfish about wanting her in your life."
"Thank you," Felicity whispers before letting out a weary sigh. "It still has to be her choice to get treatment, though."
"Yeah," he agrees. "It does. But for what it's worth, I think she will. She's too full of life to just give up."
That almost makes her smile. "I hope you're right," she replies.
Her voice is small, sounding more like a lost little girl than he'd expected. Despite himself, he hopes she does come home. Not just because he really needs to hold his wife in his arms after everything that's happened over the last week, but because she needs him, too.
After a beat, Felicity squares her shoulders and looks at him. "I'm still coming back."
It's like she's reading his mind. Often times, she might as well be.
"Okay," Oliver says readily, nodding. Even if he wanted to argue against it, he wasn't about to. "Let me know what time your flight gets in and we'll get you at the airport."
The thought of seeing them relatively soon has her brightening slightly, before the reality of how long it will take hits her. "I want to be back now," Felicity huffs, blowing a stray strand of hair away from her face in her frustration. "I want to hold my daughter and cuddle my baby boy and curl up in bed with you…" She raises her eyebrows and he already knows what she's going to ask. "You think Barry's up for a quick run?"
Oliver manages a chuckle, shaking his head. "I don't think Barry's a taxi service, honey."
"And he's focused there," she adds. Another thought hits her and she sits up taller. "He's watching out, though, right? Is Cisco monitoring for-"
"Everybody is on alert," Oliver interrupts. "We're doing everything we can. All of us, okay? We're gonna be okay."
He hopes with everything in him that that's true. And that she believes him. Truth be told, Ellie's arrival had scared the living hell out of him, making him doubt everything they'd managed to do in their effort to keep Zoom out. It's been one loss after another this week and he feels like he's barely hanging on by his fingertips at this point. But he needs to sound convincing for her sake, even if he can't quite take his own words to heart.
"We will," Felicity says, her voice fading a bit. "We will be okay." He wonders if she's saying it for the same reason he is, trying to soothe him as he's trying to reassure her. God, he can't wait for her to be back. He just wants to hold her. She looks at him, a new hope lighting her face. "Is Ellie asleep?"
"No. Just Nate. Ellie's in her room having a tea party."
A wistful look flies over her features - a tea party. It's so perfectly normal that it actually hurts, and that's something they can both agree on.
"Can I say hi?" There's a hint of anxiety under the words, and he knows she just needs to see her. He cannot wait for her to be home so they can both just breathe. It's so much easier when they have each other, right there. "I know I'll see her soon, but I just…"
"Of course," Oliver says, already standing up.
There's a hint of chastisement in his tone - because really, like she needs to ask - and it makes Felicity rolls her eyes slightly, which in turn makes him smile just a bit.
Ellie's room isn't far, just two doors down the hallway, and he's there before Felicity can say anything.
The pale tan color of the hallway gives way to the familiar bright blue of Ellie's room.
Hand-painted scenes of fairies and mermaids decorate her walls - something her Aunt Thea had commissioned - and her castle-like loft bed stands tall right in the center of the room. She's arranged her stuffed animals like subjects around the base, almost like they're standing guard. But that's not what draws Oliver's attention.
Ellie holds that distinction all her own where she's abandoned her tea party and has moved on to her books. She lies on her stomach on a plush rug that's covered with the alphabet, her little legs kicking in the air as she flips through pages of some story that features a duck who can't swim.
"Hey, Ellie-bug," Oliver says, pulling his daughter's attention to him. Her bright beautiful eyes find his, instantly lighting up at just the sight of him. It never fails to make his chest hurt just enough - with love and amazement. He smiles at her. "Mommy wanted to say hi."
She instantly drops the book with a happy, "Okay!" as she scrambles to sit up while Oliver closes in on her. She waves at the tablet as he settles down next to her, saying, "Hiya, Momma!"
"Hey, baby girl," Felicity replies. The longing in her voice makes Oliver's heart ache. "I miss you so much, kiddo."
"I miss you, too," Ellie says solemnly. She leans into Oliver, wrapping her arms around his legs as she adds, "Daddy's grumpy when you aren't here."
"Hey!" he protests.
"It's true, Daddy," she tells him, looking up at him, making her gold curls bounce. "You're like Oscar."
"Oscar the Grouch?" Felicity asks before laughing. His eyes immediately switch to his wife, his grin growing at the sight of her smiling face on the other side of the tablet. He'll take being called a grouch all day every day if it can make Felicity laugh like that right now. It's worth it.
"Yes," Ellie says, looking at the tablet again. "I miss you, too, Momma, but I'm not grouchy."
"I'm glad," Felicity says, her laughter dissolving into a longing smile.
"Are you coming home soon?" Ellie asks. "Is Gramma better yet?"
Felicity swallows hard at the question. This isn't an easy topic for anyone, but it's near impossible to explain to a five-year-old.
"The doctors are going to have to help Grandma for a while, sweetie," Felicity replies with a watery smile. "She's not better yet. But I am coming home."
"Well, hug Gramma first," Ellie advises with surprising intensity. "She says hugs are the best medicine."
That hits his wife hard. She bites her lip to keep her emotions at bay as she nods, saying, "She does. She does say that." This is harder for her than she wants to show her daughter. It's probably harder than she even wants to show him. The woman he loves with every ounce of his being has a longstanding tendency to lick her wounds in private. She's gotten better about that over the years, but this cuts her right to the bone, and he knows it has her falling back on old habits out of desperation. Some pain is too hard to share. Felicity tries to covertly wipe her eyes as she says, "I'll hug her before I come home and tell her it's from you, okay?"
"Okay." Ellie nods, satisfied. "Give Pop-Pop a hug, too. He probably needs one."
"Of course," Felicity says easily. Her eyes switch to Oliver's, and despite the topic, Oliver can see some of the weight's been lifted. "I should get going if I want to get back before midnight."
He nods. "We'll see you soon," Oliver assures her. And then he winks. "Try not to worry too much."
"Ha!" She laughs sharply, because it's obviously a request she will not be honoring. Instead, she wrinkles her nose at him and says, "Love you." She kisses her fingers, touching them to the screen.
"Love you, too," Oliver says, right before Ellie chimes in with, "Me, too, Momma!"
The connection ends without an additional goodbye and that hits him surprisingly hard.
Oliver sets the tablet down before letting out a heavy sigh. He drags his hand over his face, feeling exhausted down to his very bones.
For a split second, he almost forgets that it wasn't just his wife he was putting on a brave face for.
It's Ellie, too.
"I think you need a story, Daddy," Ellie says.
The words jolt him back to the moment, drawing him back to the present where he's sitting atop an alphabet rug next to his almost-kindergartner.
Oliver raises an amused eyebrow at her. "A story?" he repeats.
"Yeah," she says insistently. She crawls onto his lap with a determined air that reminds him so very much of her mother. Ellie leans over and grabs the book she'd abandoned before settling in again, pulling his arms in around her. "I'm gonna read it to you, 'k?"
Ellie's five. Her idea of reading is nowhere close to Oliver's, not yet anyway. Maybe a word here and there - she's a bright kid after all - but surely not a book. Still, he's read her this silly book about Webster the Unsuccessful Duckling so many times that she probably has it memorized by now.
"You need this story, Daddy," she says, looking up at him with wide blue eyes. They are eyes that can make him do absolutely anything, and he's pretty sure Ellie's a little too aware of that fact.
"Why's that, Ellie-bug?" Oliver asks, tucking her wild curls behind her ear, letting his fingers linger amongst the strands.
"'Cause you forgot," she replies.
"Forgot what?"
"That it's okay to fail 'cause that's just a chance to try again."
Oliver's hand stills at that. His fingers linger against the side of her face as he just stares at her for a moment.
It's so simple to her, so uncomplicated. Failing, in her world, means difficulty swimming or falling off her bike. It doesn't mean losing a job or watching people die because of a horrible, tragic mistake.
Still, simplistic though her perspective may be, it makes him pause.
Because she's not wrong.
"You're sad," she continues. "But that's okay, too. It's okay to be sad, just don't only be sad. You gotta remember the good stuff, too."
A lump forms in his throat and Oliver has to put extra effort to swallow around that as he marvels at his daughter.
His voice is a little thick as he asks, craving more of the little bits of her wisdom, "Like what?"
"Like… you're the best daddy in the whole wide world," she replies. His chest squeezes. "And that you make Momma smile bigger than anybody ever when you bring her coffee when we wake up. And that Nater-Tater-Bug stops crying when you blow raspberries on his belly." She shrugs, all nonchalance. "You know. The important stuff."
It's not the words that get to him, although those do impact him on a whole other level. No, it's that she believes them. That she doesn't doubt for a second that everything she's saying is absolutely true.
Oliver can lose the mayoral race and fail to save a thousand-plus people.
He can fight with Diggle and feel like a failure against an enemy he can't even find, much less beat.
But he's still Ellie's father, still the single most important person in her world. And, in spite of the danger they find in their everyday lives, she has never once felt like he's failed her.
"The important stuff…" he echoes.
"Yeah," she agrees, smiling up at him, her trust in him shining through.
The sight makes his heart lighter, makes it all just a bit more bearable. Her reminder is a gift he hadn't expected and it lessens the weight that's been dragging his soul down the last few days.
"You're right," Oliver says. He pulls her closer, pressing a kiss to her forehead. He lingers there, his eyes closing, breathing in his little girl's scent as she hums happily. "I love you, Ellie-bug."
"I love you, too, Daddy."
Ellie smiles so brightly when he pulls back to look at her and it takes his breath away.
There's nowhere else in the world he'd rather be than right here, in his daughter's room, sitting on the letter G with his five-year-old, about to read a book about a duck.
The important stuff indeed.
