Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to CW and the Arrow writers, not me.

WARNING: Strong language and adult themes, but nothing too graphic. For now.

All Roads Since You Are Wrong Directions (I'll Never Get Home)

~An Olicity Story~

Part III

-Recoil-

(v.) to react to something with shock or fear; spring back to or as if to a starting point

It was all a blur to Tommy. The ceremony had gone smoothly for the most part, they had erected a monument with the names of all the fallen carved into the slab's four sides. He opted to stay near the back, not wanting his presence to impede the grieving. He could see Oliver in the distance with Felicity and his bodyguard not far beside him but Tommy made no move to talk to his former best friend.

He still hasn't gotten sight of Laurel but he heard that Detective Lance was present somewhere so she couldn't be that far. There were a few speakers, people who had lost their family and or their homes. He listened carefully, taking into account all of the things that his father had taken from all of these people, wishing that he could do more.

Things had been going so well until the end where all he could remember was a sharp crack out of nowhere and everywhere at once and a searing pain on his side.

In the back of his mind he could hear people screaming and someone calling his name, but his focus was entirely on the hole on his side and the red thing that was pouring out of it. Blood. Was that his blood? There's so much of it… Everything around him was beginning to spin and it started to hurt his head so he closed his eyes.

"Tommy. Come on. Look at me. Tommy!" He followed the sound of the voice only to be greeted by blue eyes.

"Laurel?" He wanted to reach out. To touch her. But he couldn't move. His limbs were too heavy. He felt something cold and wet beneath him. When did he get on the ground?

"She's with her dad. They're helping the civilians. Oliver and Diggle, and a quarter of the security, went after the shooter." He gasped as there was a sudden pressure on the bullet hole. That wasn't Laurel's voice. "I'm sorry, Tommy. But I have to stop the bleeding. Somehow."

"Felicity?"

"Yeah it's me, Tommy. Ugh. It's not stopping. Why isn't it stopping? Oh my god."

He felt the pressure in his wound increase and his vision went white for a brief second. "Fuck, Smoak. Ease up a little."

"I bet you say that to all the girls." He could hear the tears in her voice and it made him wince. He never liked it when she cried it always made him feel guilty somehow even if it was because of whatever movie she was watching that day and not even remotely his fault.

"Quite the opposite actually." He let out a bubbling cough. It was starting to get harder to breathe and everything was starting to get blurry. "Don't start crying on me now. Diggle's going to kill me. I'm pretty sure he threatened to shoot me if I made you cry. But then again I've already gotten shot so that's got to count for something."

"That's not funny, Merlyn." She let out a watery chuckle.

He could hear sirens getting closer. "Help is almost here. Just hold on a little bit longer okay? Okay?" Shit those things are loud.

"Don't tell me what to do, Smoak." He was starting to get really tired and it was getting harder to keep his eyes open.

"They're pulling up. Come on. Open your eyes, Tommy." He opened his eyes to see that Felicity was openly weeping now. Diggle was going to have his head.

All of a sudden there were bright lights everywhere, hurting his eyes.

"Let go, Felicity. They've got this." Oliver? "He's going to be fine."

"No! He won't stop bleeding. I- I can't." He could see a large shadow slowly pulling Felicity away as a bunch of other people came into his line of sight.

He could see Felicity struggling against someone's arms and he heard Oliver's voice over the people that were chattering nonsense around him.

"Felicity. You need to let the paramedics help."

That was the last thing he remembered hearing before he finally succumbed to the temptation and closed his eyes.

They had rushed Tommy straight to the O.R. leaving her with a stony Oliver in a waiting room for the last couple of hours. Their arrival, and Oliver's celebrity status, had drawn some unwanted attention so they were ushered into a more private waiting area closer to the surgical wing. They had tried to settle down but her hands and clothes were still red with his blood. Tommy's blood. And she couldn't make herself look away. There was just so much blood.

Felicity glanced at her hands and arms and could feel herself start shaking. Her vision started to get blurry around the edges when all of the sudden Oliver filled her senses. She could see his lips moving but she couldn't hear what he was saying over the ringing in her ears.

She could feel his hands running up and down her arms slowly drawing her out of the abyss. "Breathe, Felicity. Deep breaths."

"I- I just… There's so much. Oh god, Oliver." She tried to match his breathing, getting herself back into a proper rhythm. She closed her eyes, focusing only on the rise and fall of his arms in tune to his chest. Oliver was here with her. She was safe and he knew bullet wounds. He's certainly got the experience. If he said Tommy was going to be okay then Tommy was going to be okay. They had gotten him help in time. Right?

"He's in good hands. He'll be okay." His hands slid down her arms until they met with her hands. Her eyes immediately snapped open towards at the point of contact. It was an odd image. Her hands were small against his and it was oddly disconcerting to see the bright red against his tan skin.

"You should go to the bathroom."

Her mind was in chaos. Her worry for Tommy as well as her close proximity to Oliver was driving rational thought from her head. And yet she could feel his thumb making circuits around the base of hers, centering her. He was a paradox, spinning her in circles, and she didn't want to let go. "I can't. What if they-"

"Felicity, you're covered in blood. You should go clean up. I will be right here if anything happens. Okay?"

"But I-"

"Hey. Go. I'll get you if there's any news." He let go of her hands and steered her to the direction of the door. She walked to the bathroom mechanically, trying to catch bits and pieces of news from the nurses and doctors walking past her, not really paying attention to anything else. When she arrived in the bathroom she finally unlatched all of her fears and worries until there was nothing left. There were so many what ifs. What if they weren't able to get help fast enough? What if he lost too much blood? What if? What if? What if?

She wiped her eyes, getting rid of all traces of the fallen tears before heading to the sink.

Felicity didn't know how long she stood there, her arms and hands hanging limply below the stream of water as she watched the water wash away the blood on her arms, the red going steadily down the drain leaving nothing but pale skin and bright pink nails. Her head was going a million miles a minute, thinking about how she should have listened to that nagging feeling in her head last night that something was going to go wrong. Why didn't she listen?

Her thoughts were broken when someone else walked into the bathroom, giving her a worried glance. She tried to give a reassuring smile but she didn't know how successful she was at that attempt so she dried her hands and made her way back to the waiting room in a sprint all of a sudden more conscious of her bloodied appearance.

She wasn't surprised to find Oliver standing still, his back against the corner wall, giving him a clear view of the door and the window beside him. She gave him a slight nod of thanks and to let him know that she was okay as she made her way to one of the chairs along the wall.

"He can't stay with you any more." Oliver stated.

"Excuse me?"

"It's too dangerous. People saw how you two behaved after the shooting. If they figure out that he's been living with you…" He strangled the words out as if they were difficult to say. "...you don't have the necessary security to deal with that."

She stalked over to him angrily. "You have no say in whoever I choose to stay in my home Oliver."

He recoiled as if she had slapped him before he steeled himself again. "It's dangerous Felicity. Your house isn't secure. There's so many blind spots. So many opportunities to attack you or him."

Felicity felt a cold dread ripple through her back as he listed every possible way that her home, and her in proxy, could be broken into, targeted, breached. Attacked. Her mind went along with him, imagining every scenario that he put forth. And he was helpless to stop it. Any of it. "Stop." She hated the way that her voice came out as a trembled whisper. "Stop it!"

"Felicity." Oliver reached out and wiped a tear that she hadn't even realized had fallen. "I… I didn't mean to scare you."

She leaned into his touch, powerless to the pull that sang through her veins, and quite frankly she needed the safety that she always felt with him. She had never thought about her home's vulnerabilities, more worried about anyone trying to breach the foundry, because nobody knew of her identity. She covered her tracks well in anything Hood-related. She never thought that anyone would target her as Felicity the person as opposed to Felicity the vigilante tech support that she never considered her house's security.

At this point even her own rationalizations are falling flat in her mental debate .

"Mr. Queen?"

The two of them jumped apart at the sudden voice in the waiting room. She ran a hand through her face wiping away anymore wayward tears and realigning her glasses, as she tried to gain control over her emotions, nearly causing her to miss the doctor's words.

"So he'll be okay?" She reaffirmed.

"As long as he avoids any heavy lifting and makes sure that the wound gets treated regularly to avoid any infection, he should be." The doctor's warm smile soothed the rough edges that she's carved out from her worries. "He's still unconscious but one of you can come see him now for a few minutes."

She nodded, relieved, and was about to take a seat, assuming that Oliver would want to be the one to see him, when he turned to her.

"Are you sure? I mean…" She gestured to him, trying to mime their bond and long term friendship.

"Felicity. It's you he'd want to be there. We're still…" Oliver turned away, his fingers rubbing together. His expression was shadowed and his shoulders were slumped in defeat. "You should go."

Felicity just nodded at him, giving him a grateful smile, before following the doctor into a large open room down the hall.

She gasped when she finally saw Tommy in the bed, hooked up to all those machines. She'd seen Oliver in worse conditions with people with less expertise and yet she had steeled herself for that possibility every night. Every night that he left the foundry. But Tommy. She hadn't prepared herself for this. She had naively thought that Tommy, who was the son of a mass murderer and the best friend of an arrow wielding vigilante, would be spared from that world. She'd forgotten that he was already a part of that world of hurt and pain and death where people killed other people for fun or profit and any of it's repercussions after he was thrown in the middle of it by his father's actions.

She felt a warm hand on her shoulder, bringing her out of her musings. "When he's ready we'll move him to a private room and you'll be able to stay there as long as you want. You may wait there if you prefer."

She thanked the doctor, squeezing Tommy's hand once, before moving back to the waiting room only to find that Oliver had left.

When he woke up he was greeted by a lot of color and a sudden blur of blonde. He winced when arms went around him, applying pressure to his side.

"Oh crap." A very feminine voice said beside him and he felt the tension alleviate suddenly as he tried to focus his eyes. "Sorry."

"Felicity?"

"You're an idiot." She muttered vehemently as she wrapped him in his arms again, but more mindful of his injury.

He chuckled, the movement making him wince. "Believe it or not, that's not the first time that I've heard that." Probably not the last either.

Tommy felt her relax he wound his arms around her. "I don't doubt that one iota, but I'm so glad you're not dead."

He pretended to be affronted at her words but she wouldn't meet his eyes. He noticed that she was still wearing the same clothes from the ceremony except for the discarded heels on the floor. She was covered in blood. His blood. The thought made a cold shiver pass through him.

"I think it's time for me to move out."

"Et tu, Brute?" He raised an eyebrow at her in question, urging her to fill in the gaps. "Oliver."

He wondered how he found out about their living arrangements considering that he hadn't been the one to tell him, but decided that how he came upon that information wouldn't really make much of a difference. "I see." Also it wasn't like he and Felicity have spoken about their living situation in detail. Hell he was pretty sure that she just told him that she had a spare room and he just never left. Proverbially.

"But he's right Felicity." The words tasted rancid in his tongue but he's always known that Oliver cared a great deal about Felicity whether he knew to what degree he does or not. If there was one thing that they could still probably find common ground in, its in keeping her safe. "I can't stay with you anymore."

She pushed back from him. Moving to sit on the chair that he didn't notice at first. "After the afternoon I've had I don't think I could stay in that house either. Which just sucks. Royally. Because I love that house."

"Why? What happened?" Worst case scenarios kept running through Tommy's head. "Shit Felicity. Did something happen to your house? Did someone try anything with you?"

"What? No. Well maybe? I think the cat next door has been planning my demise for a while now. It's going to attack soon. I can feel it." She leaned back on her chair, placing her bare feet on the edge of his bed. How she managed to do that without flashing him in her dress is an unfortunate mystery. He tried to bat her feet away but the movement only made his side hurt making her grin victoriously.

"Felicity." He ground out her name.

She sighed. "I don't know if you've realized this yet. But I'm kind of a bitch."

Incredulity washed over him. In the little over a month that he's known her, she's nothing but accommodating to him, unselfish to a fault even. Not even to just him. She spent a lot of her free time helping those that were affected by the earthquake, working in the temporary shelters or helping sift through rubble. She gave and gave and hardly ever took. He had never seen how she was outside of the comforts of her home wherein she has her quirks and her little annoying habits, and really if there was any change to her personality it would probably be more like nice and more subdued. But a bitch?

"I don't take well to being ordered around." She gave him this little smirk. "I guess it triggers the deviant in me."

The incredulity probably showed on his face because she just rolled her eyes at him. "You know I'm pretty sure that's just a human thing. Nobody likes being ordered around. And the fact that you think that that automatically makes you a bitch just goes to show you how unbitchlike you are."

Felicity just sighed, letting the matter drop with her feet as she sat up straighter. "I do get it though. I understand why you feel like you have to go."

"I just don't want you to get caught in the crossfire." He shifted into a more comfortable position. "Whether it's people wanting some revenge or the paparazzi. I owe you that much and more."

"You don't owe me anything Tommy."

"Don't fight me on this Smoak. Just take it." He matched her stare, showing her that he wasn't backing down on this one.

"Fine. But that doesn't mean that you have to leave before you're ready." Her lip stuck out into a pout and he doesn't even think that she realizes she's doing it.

"That's the problem Smoak. I don't think I'll ever be ready. But I do need to learn to stand on my own to feet. No more dad. No more Ollie. No more Laurel."

"No more me?" She cut him off with guarded eyes.

"If only it was that easy to get rid of you." He smiled at her. "I need to do this, Smoak. You know I do. All my life I've never lived on my own. Depended on myself."

"I know." She sounded resigned, but a slight quirk on her lips told him that she understood. "I guess I should start looking for some cooking lessons to sign you into before you end up living in take out or worse, burning down a whole building."

"There's nothing wrong with pizza and chinese." He defended, not even bothering to fight her on his nonexistent cooking skills.

"Tell that to your cardiologist." Felicity relaxed at her seat again as the heavy atmosphere lightened. She placed her feet back at the edge of his bed, closer to him than before, much to Tommy's chagrin.

"Move your damn feet." He growled.

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Make me."

He just rolled his eyes at her and smirked. "Bitch."

"Ass." Felicity threw back without pause.

He relaxed back into his bed, knowing when to back down. He placed a hand on her ankle, keeping it there to draw and simultaneously give comfort from the contact.

"Ain't that the truth."

Upcoming: [Part IV - Recovery]

I finally figured out where this story will be going, which will make it smoother in update times, now the only hurdle left is how to get there.

Hit the button below and let me know your thoughts

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