Felicity took in a deep breath as she stared out the tiny airplane window. It hadn't taken off yet, so all she could see was the runway and the people on the ground waving around their orange cones. In a few minutes, though, they'd be airborne and she'd have to watch in sadness as the Star City skyline got fainter and fainter in the distance.
Leaving was the very last thing she wanted to do. For the first time in so long, she felt like she actually belonged somewhere, and it was hell being forced to leave it.
She closed her eyes and thought back to Laurel's phone call. She could hear the wavering in her sister's voice and Donna's sobs in the background. It was all she could focus on. She couldn't hear the words, only how they were said.
The rest of the phone call was a blur. Because after Laurel said, "It's Sara," her next words blocked all other thought.
"Lissy, she's...she's off the wagon."
Everything around Felicity suddenly went blank. One moment she was standing in the lobby of the Starling Grand with Thea and Oliver Queen standing beside her and the next thing she knew, she was back in her hotel room, pacing back and forth while Thea and Oliver sat in the chairs by the window, looking on with worry.
Her memory of the phone call was hazy, but there were parts that implanted in Felicity's brain. Arrested...charged with possession…dishonorable discharge...
The next thing she remembered was pulling her phone away from her face to hang up. And suddenly she was back in the present, feverishly trying to find a way to get back home.
"Felicity?" Thea asked hesitantly when she saw the other woman bolt across the room for her tablet. "What are you doing?"
"I'm seeing if I can't get my flight changed to this afternoon," she answered in a rush.
She glanced over at the clock on her bedside table. It was ten-thirty...and there was a flight at noon...if she rushed to finish her packing, then maybe she'd make it...but if she couldn't make that, there was another at one...but shit, that one was oversold...
"Why?" Thea demanded. "What's going on?"
In any other situation and any other scenario, Felicity would have been hypersensitive of the fact that Oliver and Thea Queen were in her room with her, watching in confusion as she scrambled to schedule the earliest flight she could out of Star City back to Hertfordshire.
But this wasn't any other situation and any other scenario. Her brain was so frazzled and her thoughts were too all over the place that she answered the question without even thinking about it first.
"It's my sister," she rushed. "I have to go home."
"Laurel?" Oliver asked.
"No, Sara."
"Felicity, talk to us," Thea urged. "What's going on? What happened?"
Felicity swiped across her screen almost at the speed of light. "Um, I'm not entirely sure," she answered, but she wasn't paying attention to them — she was too busy looking for a flight. "I just...do either of you have the customer service number for the airline?"
"Felicity — "
"Is it too late to move my flight up to today? Will I get penalized for that? Or will they stick me on standby? What if I don't get on?"
"Wait a minute — "
"Or there are probably other deals with other airlines. I'm going to look for other airlines. Do you know who has the most flights into Hertfordshire? Will I be able to transfer my ticket?"
"Slow down — "
"I CAN'T SLOW DOWN!" Felicity shouted. "I can't slow down because my sister is in trouble and I'm not there! I need to be there!"
"Felicity," Oliver said firmly. He pulled the tablet out of her hands, then took her firmly by the shoulders so she was forced to look into his eyes. "Pause for a moment and take a deep breath."
She didn't want to take a breath. She wanted her tablet back so she could find a way to get back home.
But something in his eyes made her pause. Reluctantly, she did as he instructed, inhaling and exhaling slowly until her heart rate normalized.
"OK," he began. "Now tell us, what happened?"
The adrenaline slowly drained out of her bloodstream, and all she was left with was dread. Overwhelming panic and dread.
"Sara, she's…" Tears started welling up in Felicity's eyes and she swiped them away. "She was arrested. The cops found heroin on her."
The room got deathly quiet, but Felicity was too distracted by her thoughts — thoughts of her little sister on a street corner in the dead of night somewhere looking to score some heroin; thoughts of her little sister shooting up between her toes so no one would see the track marks; thoughts of her little sister sitting in the back of a cop car, frightened and out of her mind.
All of these thoughts suddenly overwhelmed her and she felt her knees collapse beneath her. But before she hit the ground, Oliver caught her and steered her gently back to the bed. Once she was settled, he ran into the bathroom to grab a box of tissues and returned to set them beside her while he kneeled in front of her.
"Is she OK?" Thea asked.
"Yeah," Felicity sniffed. "Laurel said she's home right now. Which is why I have to be there."
Oliver placed a gentle hand on her knee. "Hey," he said softly. "Look at me."
She glanced up and was almost immediately sucked in by his deep blue eyes and the soothing comfort she found there.
"We will make sure you get home," he told her. "Thea and I will take care of it, all right?"
Felicity didn't know why or how, but there was something about his hypnotizing eyes that made her heartbeat slow by just a tiny bit. The warm hand on her knee also helped; it was like a weight, an anchor she could focus on to keep her thoughts from getting caught up in the tornado of fear that was threatening to sweep her up again.
Once she was breathing a little more slowly, Oliver turned to Thea, and she gave him a nod in return. Then she was pulling out her phone while simultaneously walking out of the hotel room and into the hallway.
Felicity took in another deep breath. Sadness started to overtake her, now that her panic had abated slightly. Her sister, her little sister was in trouble and she didn't know what was going on or what would happen next. She reached for a tissue and pressed it against her eyes.
"Sara," she whispered sadly, "Sara...what have you done?"
Oliver's hand, which never left her knee, squeezed a little. "Felicity?" he whispered.
She sniffed and closed her eyes. "Sara, she...she's always been the wild child of the three of us, you know? Laurel was the pretty one, I was the smart one and she...she was the bubbly, outgoing one. She had a million friends when we were growing up, and once she got to high school she was the most popular kid in her grade. She got invited to more parties than Laurel and I combined."
Felicity closed her eyes and thought back to their teenage years. She thought back to all the times that Sara would come home at two in the morning, completely drunk and high on whatever her friend passed to her at the party she came from. Their parents tried to set limits: curfews, epic groundings, etc. But Sara always found a way to get in trouble.
"By her senior year, she was...she was out of control," Felicity continued. "Laurel was in law school and I was at MIT, so neither of us were there to help reign her in, and our parents were at their wits end. The night of her graduation, she got into a car accident with three of her friends. All of them were drunk and high on heroin."
Oliver didn't say anything, which made it easier for her to tell the story. This was something she and her family never talked about. She suppressed it deep inside of her because of all the anger and pain associated with the incident.
"All of them survived. They were incredibly lucky that no one else was injured, but they were all in possession of illegal narcotics and they were driving drunk. And what's more, they were under age. Sara was arrested and charged, but since it was her first offense, the judge decided to be lenient on her and send her to rehab instead."
She looked up from the hands interlocked in her lap and gave Oliver a shaky smile. "You remember that dinner in Central City with your mom, and she asked me why I dropped out of MIT, and I told her it was because of family reasons?"
He nodded.
"That was the reason. My parents didn't have the money to send her to rehab, and they also didn't have the money to pay for her court and lawyer's fees. They told me they couldn't help me with my tuition anymore, and without their financial help, I couldn't stay. So I went back home."
He made a soft noise of understanding. "That was what they were talking about, when I overheard that conversation at the Mud House, wasn't it? The financial troubles your family ran into?"
Felicity nodded. "After Sara came back from rehab, she decided to enlist in the Army because she thought the discipline would help her stay clean, and we all thought it was good for her because the structure would keep her from reverting back."
She let out a cynical laugh at the thought. How wrong they were.
Ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door and Oliver stood to get it. Thea walked back in, her phone in her hand and a gentle expression. "I put in a call to our pilot. He'll fly you back to Hertfordshire as soon as we get you to the airport."
She nodded gratefully. Within minutes she was packed, and with Oliver and Thea's help she was checked out of the hotel and on her way to the airport.
Felicity opened her eyes and she was back on the Queen's private jet, which just about as different from a commercial jet as you could be. Instead of orderly rows of cramped seats, there were eight seats total in the front cabin scattered around the wide space with a private bedroom in the back and a full bathroom attached, shower and all.
A few minutes later, the plane took off the runway and Felicity watched out the window as the Star City skyline got smaller and smaller. In the distance she could still see the Queen Consolidated building as it towered over all the other skyscrapers in downtown. But it too eventually turned into a speck on the horizon.
Since it was a private jet, she didn't have to abide by the silly technology rule, so she kept her cell phone within easy reach, waiting every moment for a text message or phone call to come through. She hadn't heard from her sister or her parents since the initial call telling her to come home, but she held out hope that maybe her dad would send a text message saying that it was just a false alarm and that everything was OK.
But even though she held on to that hope, she knew deep in her heart that it was impossible.
Silence greeted Felicity the moment she crossed the threshold of her house, and it scared the shit out of her.
"Mom? Dad? Laurel?" she called as she walked further. She left her rolling suitcase by the door and turned into the kitchen, looking for any sign of life.
The only person she found was her mother sitting at the kitchen table, pressing a mug of coffee between her palms. Her eyes were rimmed with red, showing that she'd been crying.
"Mom?" she said softly.
Donna looked up from the table and the relief on her face at the sight of her daughter was visible. In an instant, she stood from her chair and rushed to hug her.
"Lissy," she whispered. "Oh, Lissy, I'm so glad you're home."
Felicity's arms automatically went up to hug her back. "Me too."
For a prolonged moment, they stayed like that, clinging to each other like they were all they had left. Then, slowly, Donna released her daughter and sat back down and Felicity took a seat beside her.
"What happened? Where's Dad and Laurel? And Sara?"
"They're at Laurel's office," Donna answered, wiping at her tears. "They're discussing legal stuff."
"Why aren't you there with them?"
"Oh you know me, sweetie, I'm totally useless when it comes to that stuff. It all just goes right over my head. I wanted to wait for you to get home. How did you get home so quick, anyway?"
Felicity shook her head. "It's a long story," she said, waving her hand.
She couldn't spare a moment to think about the fact that she flew on the Queens' private jet just so she could come home for a family emergency. All her spare mental energy had to go to what was happening in Hertfordshire.
"What happened?" she asked.
Donna sighed and took a sip of her coffee. "From what Sara told us, she was out at a friend's house that got a little rowdy. The neighbors called the cops and when they broke up the party, she got searched and was found with heroin on her. She swore up and down that it wasn't hers, but they arrested her and ran a drug test."
Felicity sucked in a breath. "And?"
"It came back positive for narcotics." Donna's eyes welled up with tears. "When her commanding officer found out, they started the discharge paperwork. That's when she called us."
"And when was this?"
"She called us yesterday," she sighed. "We bought her a plane ticket and she came home."
"How is she?"
Donna's eyes started overflowing with the tears she'd been trying to hold onto. "Oh, Lissy," she sobbed. "She won't talk to any of us! She won't say anything! The minute she came home she just ran to the guest room in the basement and locked herself in there, not saying a single word!"
Felicity scooted closer and wrapped an arm around her mother's shoulders. It was like that the last time, she thought bitterly to herself. Sara never had a problem talking when things were fine and stable, but the minute she made a stupid decision and had to face the consequences for it, she'd clam up and not say a word.
Donna rested her head on her daughter's shoulder, and Felicity pressed her cheek on top of her mother's head as she wept.
Half an hour later, the front door slammed open. Quentin and Laurel walked through the door first, but then Felicity caught her first glimpse of her little sister in almost a year.
Ever since they were little, Sara had been one for brighter, bubbly colors to match her more effusive personality. Laurel was the reserved one, Felicity was the quirky one, but Sara — Sara was the outgoing, loud one.
The person that walked through the door, however, was almost the exact opposite of the little step sister Felicity had known for most of her life.
For one thing, she was dressed head to toe in varying shades of gray and black. Her combat boots were a worn black leather. Her yoga pants were a dull and faded gray. Her hoodie was a baggy black thing that hung off her figure in a way that made her seem larger than she was. Even the bags under her eyes matched the overall hue of her appearance.
But all of that was nothing compared to the lifeless expression in her eyes.
"Sara?" Felicity said tentatively as she stood and walked closer to her sister.
The girl herself glanced up but didn't bother to smile.
"Hey, Liss," she greeted. Her voice was hoarse from disuse and it freaked Felicity out — the Sara she knew never shut up.
Without saying a word, Felicity crossed the room and wrapped her arms around her sister's tiny body. It was proof, tangible, physical proof that Sara was still alive, that she was still breathing in and out.
The younger girl returned the hug half-heartedly, like she scarcely had the energy to raise her arms and wrap them around her sister, but Felicity didn't care. She had enough energy for the both of them, as long as she knew that her sister was all right.
Sara was the first to pull away and Felicity respected her wishes by releasing her.
"How are you?" Felicity asked, searching her sister's eyes for any hint of what she wasn't telling everyone else.
"I'm fine," she answered woodenly. "I'm just...tired. I'm going downstairs to rest, OK?"
Without waiting for an answer from anyone, Sara walked around Felicity's stiff figure and headed down to the basement, slamming the door to the stairs behind her.
Quentin sighed and rubbed his hands over his eyes. It was his tell, the way he showed his exhaustion. Laurel, beside him, seemed equally exhausted.
"So, what's going to happen now?" Donna asked.
"We don't know for sure yet," Laurel admitted. "Since she's already got a drug arrest on her record, the consequences are probably going to be more severe this time around."
Felicity let out a breath, trying to wrap her mind around everything that happened in the past twelve hours. It was almost hard to believe that she woke up this morning in Star City, looking forward to a relatively stress-free day.
"What about Sara? How is she? Has she said anything?" Donna asked.
"No," Quentin answered. "She just asked a couple of questions, but then she kept quiet. Hasn't said a word."
That was what frustrated Felicity the most. In all the time she'd known Sara, she never seemed to shut up. She talked nonstop all the time, whether it was in her best interest or not. Yet here she was, in a situation where they needed her to talk, for once. The one time she maintained her silence was the time it was the least convenient for all of them.
Donna let out a breath. "Well. I have to get to work."
"Go," Quentin said as he pecked her on the temple. "I'll call you if anything comes up."
She nodded. Then she wrapped her hands around Laurel's and Felicity's arms in a reassuring gesture before picking up her purse and walking out the door.
The three remaining family members trekked toward the dining room table. The minute Quentin's butt hit the chair, he let out a monumental groan that made Felicity reach forward to put her hand in her father's.
"So what's next?" Felicity asked.
"We're in a holding pattern for now," Laurel answered. "Sara's got a pretrial hearing in Colorado that she's got to go to, and that's in two months. We won't know anything for sure until after that."
"She's going to go to trial?" Felicity demanded in alarm.
"Don't worry," Laurel said soothingly. "This is routine. Anyone who's charged with a felony has a series of pretrial hearings. They have multiple opportunities to avoid trial between now and then. Things might be a little different in Colorado, but what will most likely happen is she'll plead out in exchange for a lesser charge or a lesser sentence."
"Like what? What are some of the outcomes here?"
Laurel took in a deep breath. "The worst case scenario, she's looking at five years."
It was like someone had sucked all the air out of the room. Five years. Sara could go to prison for five years.
The thought made Felicity want to throw up.
"That's just the worst case scenario," Quentin said tiredly. "We've still got a few steps between here and there. We might be able to avoid prison time altogether. At the moment, we're working on trying to find her a decent lawyer who can negotiate a deal that avoids prison time."
"Will it work?"
"I think it could," Laurel said. "I know as a prosecutor, I'd probably take a look at a case like this and offer a reduced charge. Send her to rehab again, assign her some community service. She was a soldier who fell in with the wrong crowd, she served her country, she saw some stuff while she was deployed, she needed a way to cope and she turned down a bad but familiar path, et cetera."
"Does that mean you're going to be her lawyer?"
Laurel shook her head. "I can't."
"Why not?" Felicity demanded.
"First of all, I'm not a member of the Colorado bar," she answered. "Second of all, I'm a prosecutor. I'm an ADA. I don't have any experience as a defense attorney."
Felicity felt the beginnings of a pit of despair forming in her stomach. A lawyer was going to cost a lot of money. And flying back and forth from Hertfordshire to Colorado wasn't going to be cheap either. The last time Sara was arrested, it took all the money Quentin and Donna had saved up for both Sara and Felicity's college tuition to pay off the legal fees and for rehab.
Now, with no savings to fall back on, how were they going to pay for all of this?
She glanced up at her father and she could tell that all the same thoughts were running through his mind. It was there in the worry written all over his face. Felicity wanted to reach over and reassure him, but she didn't know how.
Eventually, Quentin's stomach let forth an inhuman growl, so Felicity got up and reheated some leftovers Donna brought home from work. The three of them ate in silence, drowning in their own thoughts.
Felicity looked down into her water glass, as if it might have the answer to all the questions she turned over and over in her head. Just yesterday her future and her family's future seemed so clear, but now it was muddy and clouded.
It was a terrifying thought.
The next few days were tense ones for the Smoak-Lance household. Laurel and Quentin spent most of their free time working on trying to get Sara out of trouble while Donna spent most of her free time taking care of the two of them. Sara, on the other hand, remained locked in the basement, avoiding her family and anyone else who wanted to talk to her.
In the meantime, Felicity went back to work and tried to pretend like everything was all right. Friends and town members would ask her about Sara and what she was doing home, and she would just smile in response and say something vague about her sister being home on leave.
About a week after Sara came home, Felicity woke up in the middle of the night in search for a glass of water. She snuck down the stairs as quietly as she could so she wouldn't wake up anyone else in the house, but as she crept to the kitchen, she could hear the distinct sounds of her mother and father talking in hushed voices.
"There's no way we can do it, sweetheart." Quentin sounded defeated, like he'd just watched his favorite boxer go ten rounds and ultimately lose. "We can't afford it."
"But we can't let her go to jail," Donna's voice insisted. "We can't! Not after everything she's already been through!"
"I know," he continued. "But she's the best lawyer in the area for this kind of thing, and her rates are too high. We can't pay for it. We're already looking at all the court fees and the airfare back and forth...it's too much."
Felicity felt the bottom of her stomach drop out. This was just as she feared — Sara's legal case was going to bankrupt her parents, and she was going to have to go to jail anyway.
Without making a peep, she turned around and crept back up the stairs to her bedroom. Once she had closed the door, she threw herself onto her bed in pure misery. She wanted to cry and scream, she wanted to punch something — she was so overcome with emotion that she didn't know how to let it out.
Her parents...her poor parents. All they'd ever done was try to look out for their girls, but now here they were, hamstrung by shitty circumstances and terrible decisions made by their youngest daughter. And for the second time in five years, they found themselves staring down the barrel of bankruptcy.
Deep down, she already knew the solution. She knew what she could do to help her sister avoid jail and help her parents avoid going into debt to do it. But doing so meant she'd once again be stuck in Hertfordshire for another year — maybe even longer. Maybe she'd get stuck there forever.
And the more she thought about it, the angrier she became, and she focused all her anger on one person: Sara.
It was all Sara's fault. Sara had once again fucked up and it was once again up to her family to bail her out of the shitty situation she landed herself in.
The next day, everyone else in the house went to work, leaving Felicity alone with Sara barricading herself in the basement again. Once they were all gone, Felicity marched down to the basement to finally confront her taciturn sister.
When she walked down there, she found her sister draped over the couch, covered in an old quilt and wearing the same hoodie she wore when she first saw her. She looked even grayer now, colorless from locking herself away from the sunlight and refusing to interact with anyone in the family.
But her appearance did nothing to quell Felicity's anger. Instead, it only stoked the fire.
"I need to talk to you," she declared, her arms crossed as she stared down at Sara.
The younger girl made no notice that she'd heard Felicity, much less acknowledged her presence. She just continued to lay there, her eyes staring up at the ceiling.
But Felicity didn't let Sara's silence stop her.
"Mom and Dad have been trying to figure out how to help you avoid going to jail. They're saying there's only one lawyer in Colorado who can really help, but she's too expensive."
Sara didn't move.
"Here's the thing: I've got some money saved up. I was saving it so I could move out to a bigger city to find a better job, but I think it would be enough pay for your lawyer."
Again, Sara said nothing, and it made Felicity furious.
"So?" she demanded. "Do you want my help or not?"
Sara let out a breath. "Do what you want," she muttered. "I don't care."
"What do you mean you don't care?" Felicity demanded. "You could go to jail."
Sara rolled her eyes, and that was when Felicity lost it.
"I can't believe you," Felicity bit out. "Don't you get it? Don't you see that you could be going to jail? Laurel said you're looking at five years! Five years in prison, Sara! And Mom and Dad are wracking their brains and busting their butts looking for a way to keep you out of prison. They might have to go into debt to do it. They might have to go bankrupt, and still you don't give a shit. Then here I am, the sister you've already screwed over once before, giving you a fucking out! And you still don't give a shit!"
Sara huffed out an annoyed breath. "Fuck off," she muttered. "I didn't ask for your help. I don't need your help."
"Obviously you do, otherwise you wouldn't be in this situation!"
Suddenly Sara sat up on the couch, glaring back her with a fire reminiscent of the woman she was before all of this happened. It almost made Felicity take a step back.
"Shut up!" Sara screamed. Tears started forming in her eyes. "Just shut your fucking face! Can you for once, in your FUCKING LIFE stop being such a sanctimonious bitch and leave me the fuck alone? I fucking hate you, just leave me alone!"
Felicity felt her own eyes welling up, but she held tight to her tears. She refused to let her sister see how much her words stung.
"You fucking selfish brat," she spat. "You know what? I hope you do go to jail and I hope you rot in their for everything you've done to this family!"
Sara let out a sardonic laugh that sounded so completely wrong coming out of her.
"Oh please, Felicity. Don't act like you're so fucking concerned for our family! You've always been the uppity bitch who was too good to live in Hertfordshire! Ever since we were little kids, all you ever talked about was getting out of here! You were too smart, too talented, too perfect to live in this fucking hick town! The only reason you're angry about any of this is that you'll have to give up your savings and stay here longer! You don't give a shit about me!"
Felicity's balled her fists, pretending like she was clutching tight to her tears. Sara had always been the one to cut hard and deep in a fight, and this was no different.
"You're the one who doesn't give a shit about this family!" Felicity retorted. "If you did, you wouldn't have relapsed and gotten yourself arrested, gotten yourself kicked out of the Army!"
The tears started flowing freely down Sara's face, but she didn't look away. "Yeah, and I bet you were just thrilled when you found out, weren't you?"
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about you, and your pathological need to be better than me and one up me every chance you get!"
That made Felicity roll her eyes. "You're delusional."
"No I'm not! That's your M.O., Felicity! You always, always had to be the smarter one! You had to be the best at everything, and you couldn't ever handle it when someone else was smarter or better than you! And when you beat me at something, you took our parents' attention away from me and rubbed it in my face."
"That is not true!"
"Yes it is! You spent our entire childhood making me feel like shit for not being as smart as you! You always looked down on me because I wasn't in the same accelerated classes or because I only got a C in math! And then when we got older you made me feel like shit whenever I made a bad decision! You wouldn't talk to me for a week after the accident because Mom and Dad had to use your tuition money to pay for my rehab!"
"Your shitty decisions were the reason I had to drop out of MIT!" Felicity shouted. "What did you want from me, a fucking pat on the back?"
"No!" Sara screamed. "What I wanted from you was support! I had just been in an accident, an accident that almost killed me and three of my friends, and the minute you came home from Cambridge, you just glared at me like I ruined your fucking life! I was already feeling like shit, and you just twisted the knife! You made me wish I had died in that accident!"
That shocked Felicity into silence, but Sara kept going. The tears were flowing freely now, and she didn't do anything to stop them from trailing down her face.
"All my life, all I wanted was for you to treat me like a sister. For you to love me like you loved Laurel, and I thought that once, maybe just once, you'd finally put aside whatever superiority complex you had and be there for me when I needed you. But no, you just made me feel even worse. Nothing I ever did would be good enough to impress the great Felicity Smoak."
Sara's words rooted Felicity to her spot. Even if she wanted to escape, she couldn't. She couldn't move as Sara hurled her accusations, slicing through her with every word.
"So you know what? I stopped trying. I just gave up. Because you were never going to see me like an equal. You were always going to look down at me, because I was your dumb baby sister who couldn't do anything right."
This was a pain worse than anything else Sara had thrown at her. It was like she shooting arrow after arrow right into her heart, but there was nothing she could say or even do to make it stop or make it better.
Felicity unclenched her fists and the tears started rolling down her cheeks. And that's when Sara delivered the fatal blow.
"So Felicity," she shot, in a voice shaking with venom, "let's not pretend like you're making this sacrifice for me. Because we both know that you don't give a shit about anyone but yourself."
The minute Sara had finished yelling at her, Felicity fled the house. It left her shaking and unsure and in desperate need to be as far away from any living and breathing soul as possible. Even though it was early March and freezing, she escaped to the secluded corner of the beach where teens went after school to get high.
When she was sure no one was around, she collapsed onto a rock overlooking the beach and released her tears. Her sister, her own little sister, thought she hated her, and even though it wasn't true, she couldn't point to a single instance in their life where should definitively refute what Sara had said.
Was this her fault? Was she the reason Sara ventured down this path? How could it have changed if she'd just been more available, more open and honest about her feelings with her sister?
Ten minutes into her solitude, Felicity felt a buzz in her pocket. Without bothering to look at the caller ID, she swiped to answer.
"Hello?" she answered in a shaky voice.
A pause. Then, "Felicity?"
She quickly swiped at her tears. "Who is this?"
"It's Oliver Queen."
Her shock pushed aside all other emotions for a moment. "Oh. Hi, Oliver."
"Is this a bad time?"
Yes, she thought. She wiped again at her eyes and nose, happy that he wasn't physically there to see her in this state. "No, not at all," she said brightly, hoping like hell he couldn't hear the tears in her voice. "How can I help you?"
"Well," he began, "I've talked it over with the management, and I wanted to formally offer you the position here at Unidac."
Felicity's widened. Oh God, she thought. Her time in Star City interviewing for the position at Unidac felt like it happened ages ago. She had completely forgotten about it all.
Everything had changed on a dime. A week ago, she would have said yes without even thinking twice. But now...now there was no way.
"I...I'd really, really like to," she began haltingly. "You have no idea. But I...I can't."
There was a long silence on the other end. Then, "Felicity, if this is because of what I said in Central City, I — "
"No, it's not that," she interrupted, tears welling up in her eyes. "It's not that at all, I just…" She took in a deep breath. "I don't have the money right now to move to a new city and...there are things going on here at home that I need to be here for."
She squeezed her eyes closed as she thought about it. God, the stupid irony of it all. Just when she was inches away from finally getting out of Hertfordshire and moving to her dream city for her dream job, she once again found herself trapped here because of a shitty set of unforeseen circumstances.
"Felicity, are you OK?"
Maybe it was something about the baritone in his voice or the way he said her name and injected every word with genuine concern, but his question undid her. The tenuous hold she kept on her emotions broke and she let out a tiny, keening wail.
"My sister," she sobbed. "It's my sister. She's in trouble and she won't let me help her because she thinks I hate her and nothing could be further from the truth, but I don't know how to fix it and it's my fault and I just don't know what to do!"
And with that, it all came pouring out of her. She told him about everything that happened since she came home, all the legal and financial troubles her parents were running into, how she tried to solve the problem by offering her savings, and how she and Sara traded barb after barb.
"I don't know how to fix this, Oliver," she wept. "She's my sister. My baby sister. I love her so much, but I don't know what to do."
"I know," he finally said.
There was such deep empathy and understanding in his voice. It made her wish he was there with her. She wanted his physical presence, one that seemed so strong and steady. It was a presence she once detested for its robotic solidness but now craved for its stability.
She sniffed. "How did you do it?" she asked. "When Thea got into trouble, what did you do?"
He took in a breath. "Well," he began, "We all went to a therapist, and we figured out that Thea was acting out because she felt trapped in her lifestyle. It was so structured and rigid, from school to music classes and all of that, and she never got to spend any time with Mom or me. So I started trying to spend more time with her. I started easy, with board games like Monopoly and Candyland. Then we started spending whole weekends together. Now we have a set time every week where we go to lunch and talk."
"And it worked?"
"Yeah," Oliver answered. "She wanted my attention. She wanted just to spend time with me, so I gave her that and I continue to try and give her that."
"So if I start playing Candyland with Sara, she'll get better?"
"Maybe," he said. "You have to identify what she needs first. If she needs more time with you, then find a way to spend time with her. Maybe it's Candyland, maybe it's something else. Let her take the lead and let her show you. She knows what she needs better than you do."
Felicity wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. The rational side of her brain, the part she valued more than anything, clinged to his advice like a life raft. This was good, she thought. These were concrete things she could do to help.
"Thank you," she whispered. Then she let out a small laugh. "Wow, I can't believe I just unloaded all of that on you. I'm so sorry."
"Don't be," he answered. "I'm glad you confided in me."
She felt her heart thump in her chest, and she felt herself once again yearning for his presence.
"I'm sorry I can't take the job," she murmured. "I really want to. But I can't."
"I understand," he said. "I wish you and your family all the best. And don't hesitate to call me if you need anything."
She nodded, then remembered she was on the phone and he couldn't see her. "Right. Thank you. For everything — for your advice and your well wishes and...and for getting me back home so quickly the other day. You were like my knight in shining armor."
"I just wish I could have done more."
Her heart cracked at his words. "You've done so much already."
A pause stretched out, long enough to fill up the hundreds of miles between them. It was a heavy silence, filled with so many wishes and almosts that Felicity felt like she was drowning in them.
"Well then," he said finally. "Take care, Felicity."
Tears stung the back of her eyes. It sounded so final, like they knew they'd both never see or talk to one another ever again.
In that instant, she wished she could take back all the times she wished she'd never have to talk to Oliver ever again just for a chance to know that it wouldn't be the last time.
"You too, Oliver," she whispered. "Goodbye."