Okay so I have to send a giant shout out to my darling friend Sue (skimmy77) for beta-ing this for me. She is also a lovely writer and you should read her work.
He doesn't know how long he's been out. After being stabbed by Ra's and his last thought being of her, he couldn't remember anything else. He remembers waking up in some cave like cell where a tray of food and clothes sat for him. When he tested the door, it was unlocked. What was waiting for him at the end of the cave was someone he never thought he would see again.
"Now I know I really have died if you're here," he told himself.
The figure turned and smiled at him. "Hey now! I just took care of your ass for the last 6 weeks, you owe me." He came over and hugged him. It wasn't until the figure touched him that Oliver accepted it was real. It's what broke him and had him begin crying on Tommy's shoulder.
"Oh god Tommy," he sobbed.
Tommy's arms tightened around Oliver to help hold him up. "I know man, I know." Tommy had a few tears fall down his face also. When Oliver was able to calm down, he finally pulled away from Tommy.
"So how was our sister the last time you saw her?" Tommy asked.
Oliver was surprised at the question.
"Yeah I know that Thea is actually our half sister. He told me when I was conscious again."
Oliver was a little confused before he realized that Tommy was talking about his father. "She's- she's different. He was able to get a hold of her and change her. I still haven't figured out if it's for the best or worse. I need to get back to her, I'm all she has left. Mom-our mom is-"
"I know. He told me that also. He told me a lot about the things have changed since I died. Like how you stopped killing, how Laurel hit major rock bottom, how you have a sidekick. He told me that our favorite Detective is now a captain, that you are poor now. The last thing he told me was that Sara died."
Oliver looked away from his friend. He didn't want to tell him the truth behind Sara. He didn't want to tell him that his father manipulated their sister, drugged her, to kill Sara. How it was his father's fault that he had died because he was trying to serve the debt that Malcolm had put on Thea's head.
"Oliver?"
Oliver turned to his best friend with a pained expression on his face. Tommy took one look and sighed. "Malcolm was behind it wasn't he? Malcolm was also the reason for your death, am I right?"
Oliver nodded his head solemnly.
"I figured as much when he showed up here with your body."
"How Tommy? How am I alive? I remember Ra's stabbing me, I tasted the blood in my mouth, I felt his boot on my chest. My last thought was-" Oliver stopped talking because thinking of her hurt.
"I really don't know. Malcolm told me there was something called the Lazarus Pit. He told me he used it on the two of us because we're his sons and he's already lost enough people that he loved. I am so sorry you are in this club." Tommy joked. He was trying to make things more light hearted. He already knew how shitty his best friend's life has been; he didn't want to be the one to add on to it.
"I need to get out of here, Tommy. I need to- we need to go home. There are so many people who miss you and I have to go back to her. I promised her I would come back."
"Felicity?"
Oliver turned his head quickly to look at Tommy.
"When you started to become normal again, no longer being insane, you would call her name. Sometimes you would scream her name in your sleep. How is she? I didn't really get the chance to know her before everything happened."
"She's-she's everything to me, Tommy. When you died I made a vow to never kill again. She has helped me keep that vow. Only once have I had to kill, and that's because someone was about to hurt her. I couldn't- I can't live without her. She knows how I feel about her, and I know, or at least I think I know how she feels about me. I saw her kissing Palmer and I was so- at this point I don't care if she's moved on from me, I just need to see her and make sure everything is okay. Please Tommy, can we go home?"
Tommy looked at his friend and saw a mix of emotions. Sadness, fear, hope, and love. He needed to tell his friend no, tell him that he, himself had been gone for too long, but that he could leave very easily. But the look on Oliver's face made him reconsider. "We have a very short window to do this in. I know you like to be in control of things, but this time I'm in charge. We'll need-"
Oliver cut him off with a hug. "Thank you."
"Yeah, yeah, buy me a drink later to make it up to me." He smiled as he pushed Oliver away. Tommy started to walk around the cave telling Oliver what to grab and pack, grabbing the map that his father left hung up in the room, thinking Tommy would never leave.
They entered through one of the hidden tunnels, one that no one but Oliver himself knew about. He saw those that mattered to him being normal. Diggle was sparring with Roy on the mat, and Felicity was in her chair watching. The only difference was that Thea was down there now. She was sitting on a table next to the monitors watching, just like Felicity. Oliver felt weird. It felt like he was an unwanted piece of a puzzle. He tried to back up to turn around, but forgot that Tommy was right behind him, causing him to back up into a shelf and knock things over. It was quick, the changes that happened. Felicity was out of her chair behind Diggle, who stood next to Thea and Roy. Diggle had his gun trained in their direction, Roy had his bow with an arrow nocked, and Thea had a sword raised. Oliver and Tommy had their arms raised and walked out from the shadows to show everyone their faces. They all sucked a breath in and no one moved. Oliver was nervous about who was going to react first, and how. He thought it was going to be Roy, because Roy was so like him when it came to surprises. It was Thea who moved first. She dropped her sword and ran towards the two of them, knocking them both back a couple of steps.
"She said you were dead. She said that you lost the battle. Tommy, you died in The Undertaking! Our father killed you! How? How are you two back? For how long are you back?" Thea sobbed between the two.
"Okay, so I'm not the only one hallucinating Oliver. Thank god," Diggle said, putting the safety back on his gun and returning it to its holster. Roy lowered his bow as well. Tommy and Oliver, keeping Thea between them, walked closer to the group. If it wasn't for the fact that Oliver only looked towards her, he wouldn't have noticed that Felicity moved back a little bit as they moved forward.
"What the hell happened man?" Diggle asked. "Three months ago you left, two days after that Nyssa showed up here to tell us that you were dead, that you lost the battle. How the hell are you alive? Is this another Barry incident?"
"No, and truthfully, I don't know how. Tommy said it was something to do with a pit?" Oliver turned to look at Tommy who nodded his head a little.
"Yeah, it's called a Lazarus Pit. I don't know everything about it, but it's what my father used on me two years ago, and then he used it on Oliver three months ago. It has some weird healing properties. I wish I knew more, but Malcolm never told me much."
"Why now?" Roy asked. Everyone turned to look at him in confusion, everyone but Oliver, who kept his eyes on Felicity.
"You were gone for two years, why are you just now coming back?" he asked, looking at Tommy.
"Everyone thought I was dead. A lot of things happened in the final days before I died, things that I thought could never be fixed. One of them being that I broke the heart of the girl I loved, and I called my best friend a monster. I didn't know, still don't actually, how to fix it. Then Oliver showed up in my cage, and I took that as a sign that things could be fixed."
Thea wrapped both her arms around him tightly. "It doesn't matter. You're here now and you're here to stay. Wait until Laurel sees."
"Maybe we should wait." It was the first time Felicity spoke since they came in.
Thea looked at her in confusion. "Why? So many people would be glad to see him alive again."
"And there are also those who would want his head on a stake for what his father did, just like they did you and your brother. But the reason I think we should wait is to run some tests on them to see if they really are who they say they are, and maybe a few tests on their blood to see if we can't find any traces of what brought them back."
"You're Felicity aren't you?" Tommy asked. "I vaguely remember you. You used to hang out around the club before Oliver would show up before disappearing. Now it makes sense on why Oliver loves you." He smiled in her direction. Oliver saw her twitch when Tommy said that he loves her. Luckily Tommy did too.
"Hey, I'm hungry. Anywhere we can get some food?" Tommy asked, looking at everyone. Diggle got the hint and nodded. Thea was enthusiastic and started to drag him up the stairs towards the closed club, and Roy just followed along. Felicity went to follow as well, but Oliver didn't want her to leave yet.
"Felicity." Oliver spoke her name softly. Again she flinched before sucking in a deep breath. Oliver took a step towards her and she moved back.
"Don't," she told him. "You're not real. You are nothing more than another dream I'm having. My dreams are giving me new twists about seeing you again. You're not real, and soon my alarm will be going off to wake me up." She had her eyes closed while talking to him, and Oliver took this chance to get closer to her. He didn't touch her, even though he wanted to so badly. He wanted to know that this wasn't a dream either.
"Felicity, open your eyes," he whispered. He saw that his breath made a loose strand of hair flutter a little. He wanted to tuck that strand behind her ear, wanted to cup her cheek and kiss her, wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her, all to just make sure that she was real and that he was alive, that she was standing right there in front of him. That he wasn't imagining the smell of her perfume, or the brightness of her lipstick. When she opened her eyes he looked down into her dark blue eyes that were holding back tears.
"I told you I would come back," he murmured.
"At what cost?"
Oliver looked at her in confusion. "Felicity?"
She stepped back from him and raised her hands up a little. "What did you bargain to come back to us? Your loyalty to Ra's or to Merlyn? What happened to make you stay away from me, from us, for three months? Do you know the pain you put me, us, through? Diggle and Thea felt like they lost their brother again, Roy lost the only person who ever gave him a true chance and helped him control his rage, and I- I lost-" Felicity tried to choke back the sobs that wanted to rip through her. Here he stood in front of her, she could touch him, she could breath in his scent that had long left the clothes that she took, she could finally tell him those three words she's been wanting to tell him for so long, but she couldn't. She was too hurt and angry. Oliver moved to try and hold her but she yelled and moved further back from him.
"No! You cannot touch me until you tell me what the hell you did to be reprieved like this! How long do we get you until you leave us again? What deal did you make with the fucking demon or devil?" Tears were streaming down her face, either from anger or sadness, neither one knew.
"No deal." He spoke calmly into the quiet Foundry.
"What?"
"There was no deal. Technically Ra's killed me, he stabbed me right here," he pointed to the spot where he can still feel the blade slicing through his skin.
"And Merlyn?"
Oliver shook his head. "He wasn't there when I woke up. Only Tommy. I told Tommy I had to come back, come back to Thea and come back to you."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you need to come back to me?"
"Damn it Felicity! I told you that I love you. You are the only woman that I love and the only woman I want to love! Why is that so hard for you accept?" Oliver yelled.
"Because I don't want to be a woman you love! I don't want to love you and you shouldn't love me! We are toxic. Those that we love and those that love us in return die! We have lost too many people in our lives and I am tired of losing them. I am just so tired Oliver." Felicity finally broke down and released all the pent up emotions that she has held in since the day Nyssa came and told her that Oliver was dead. She sobbed in to her hand and started to fall. She would have, if it wasn't for Oliver's arms coming around her and gently lowering her to the floor. She tried to pound on his chest, but her hits were weak and Oliver didn't stop them. He just pulled her into his lap and held her to his chest as he released some of his emotions as well. He waited for her to calm down before releasing her just enough to look into her eyes.
"Felicity, you are not toxic. You are one of the brightest, happiest, selfless people I have ever met. If anyone is toxic it would be me. I brought you in on this selfishly because I didn't want to die. You stayed to find Walter. Instead of telling you to leave when he was found again, I allowed you to stay, putting you in danger even more. When Tommy died, I ran, you stayed behind and rebuilt everything that I knew before bringing me back. You apologized to me when I broke my vow to save you. You showed me love and all I did was push it away because I was scared. I am toxic because I am selfish. Even now I'm being selfish by asking you to be mine because I love you."
"Every man that I have loved has left me, Oliver. If I love you, I am so scared that you will be next. I can't handle losing you, not again." She sniffled. Oliver brushed away stray tears with the pad of his thumb and laid a gentle kiss to her forehead.
"I can't promise that you won't lose me. You know that with the life that we live, any one of us can get hurt. What I can promise you is that everyday that I am out there, I will always fight to come back to you. I promise that I will always be open with you. I promise to love you for as long as you will let me."
Felicity closed her eyes again and laid her head on his chest. Oliver just held her and rubbed soothing circles into her back. He knew that he had weeks to think about all this, and he knew he was ready; ready for whatever life threw at him, ready to take his family's company back, ready to be a brother again, but most importantly ready to be the man that Felicity deserved.
"I-" Felicity muttered something into his chest, too softly for him to understand.
"Felicity?"
"I love you too," she said more loudly. "But I'm still mad at you so-" She wanted to say more but Oliver cut her off with a kiss. It was a kiss that spoke words when there was none: love, hope, gratitude, promise. It was the kind of kiss Felicity had only ever read about in romance novels. When Oliver pulled away they were both breathless.
"As long as you are my Girl Friday, I don't care." He smiled at her.
"It's Wednesday." She smiled again before Oliver covered her lips with his one more time.