(A/N: Well, here I go, adding to the glut of post-2x23 fic.)
Measure—Words to Encompass a World
It was easy. It was natural. It scared him.
Felicity was smart—brilliant. He knew she would catch on immediately, and she did, as soon as he pressed the syringe into her hand. But he hadn't counted on how it would feel to look into her eyes and put on a show for the cameras.
She hadn't gotten it at first—he could tell. Her reactions were off, and he was worried Slade wouldn't buy it. "I love you" was not part of the plan. It just came out, and as the words left his lips, he realized he meant them. They were precious words. For all his fooling around before the island, and his ill-judged relationships since, he'd never thrown those words around. They were serious words. "I love you" was a promise, yet it had tripped from his tongue as naturally as her name.
Her name. Whenever he struggled to find words, or came up against something he couldn't bring himself to say, he would pour everything he had into her name. Felicity. He'd make it a prayer, a plea, a song. A promise. I love you.
When Slade said her name, Oliver almost wrecked the whole plan right there. From Slade's mouth, her name was not a promise but a curse. You lose, I win. Die alone. The fury awoken in him almost blotted out the horror of seeing her with a blade at her throat. But as he began to speak to distract the other man, he swelled with pride. Naked fear battled in her eyes with unwavering trust, and fear lost.
Slade had implied that she was weak. He thought he'd taken her measure, but he had no idea what she was made of, this woman who had called Oliver on his b.s. from the moment they'd met, who knew when she'd taken the syringe that she was holding her own life in her hands, and his life, and Sara's, and Laurel's, the responsibility of an entire city in her small hands, long fingers, chipped nail polish. Oliver never doubted for a minute that she would save them all.
He'd rarely seen her at a loss for words, but she floundered as they spoke on the beach, most of her sentences incomplete and dangling over the edge of a precipice he was afraid to approach. "I love you" was a promise, and he could offer her nothing but fear, danger, and a shattered soul almost beyond redemption. Almost.
Felicity's confession that she'd nearly bought it herself squeezed at his heart a little. She had held out hope in her hands for one brief moment before putting it back in her pocket, where it belonged. Hope was a promise too, and she didn't know, at the mansion or later on the beach, that while Do you understand? meant Do you understand the plan?, it also meant Do you understand that I love you?