Chapter 10

Whispered talks

"How is she?" Felicity heard a voice whispering beside her bed. Oliver's voice… but it was far away, like he was talking through a wall. She couldn't make herself understand exactly what was going on, her brain too slow to pick up the context and for some moments she wondered who he was talking about, until another voice answered.

"Asleep. She needs the rest to heal properly…" Sara whispered back and Oliver sighed.

Stupid meds were making her all fuzzy and slow.

"I know… I just hoped I would never see her in this position…" and his voice broke and Felicity wanted to reach him, but she was so tired… just a movement… but her arm remained stuck to her side…

"Knowing her she would scoff at you, saying she is the one that commands her life…" Sara replied far away, at least to Felicity it sounded like that.

And she heard no more.

The whispered voices arose her once again, this time Roy speaking with a very curious Thea.

They were so far away Felicity was sure they were outside her door. The girl sounded like she was asking to speak with her brother and when Oliver's voice answered, Felicity could hear the tiredness dripping from every word.

She couldn't make sense of what they were saying, but apparently she wanted him to go home or something similar and his resounding no ended their conversation with the younger woman saying goodbye with an exasperated tone.

She knew she should say something but the energy spent between thinking about something and doing it ran out before she could use it.

"No, detective, she is in no condition to talk with you. She is resting now!" she could hear Oliver's angry voice talking to an unknown person. This time it was in a raised tone that, with his growl, made her shiver.

"Sir, it's better if you lower your voice, unless you want Miss Smoak to wake up…" Diggle whispered. But she wanted them to speak louder, she wanted them to bring her from the world of sleep and be active and the Felicity Smoak she knew she was.

"But she is fine, right?" Lance's worried voice joined the conversation.

For the first time, Felicity let herself really think about that night and remembered Lance's worried voice calling her name. He was the one that got her help and just like she said to Oliver she would have to thank and would forever be in debt to that man. She felt a spike of warmness towards the former detective, always so formal while inside the station, but so fatherly after she got to know him, that she already respected and admired, but that now felt deeply connected to. Sara and Laurel were really lucky for having that man as a father.

And then his voices faded once again into the buzz of her head.

The next time she really regained conscience, with open eyes and clear head, she found Diggle sitting beside her bed. Oliver was nowhere in sight and she couldn't decide if she was relieved or disappointed.

"He had to answer a call…" her friend said and she smiled sheepishly at him.

"How mad are you?" Felicity asked. She knew Oliver said they already had that conversation, but she needed to hear Diggle, she needed to hear the friend that for five months helped her getting back on track while Oliver was away on that island. The friend she consoled when his relationship with Carly didn't work out.

"Extremely…" he said, but smiled nonetheless. "I was serious, you know? Don't do that ever again!" Dig said and Felicity saw the pain in his eyes. "Do you know how I felt when Sara called me? Do you imagined how we found Oliver in the hospital? Or how Roy almost jumped into the car's roof when I said he couldn't come? I know it's hard, but… Roy and now Sara… we have to work together…. We are a team…" Dig said, almost exasperated and Felicity nodded.

"I know, but… I was the odd one… I was always the odd one… You could kick any bad guy's ass and I… I was always behind the computers… I let Tockman destroy my system… I let Merlyn find out about our surveillance… Do you know how it feels knowing that the only thing you are good in isn't good enough?" Felicity replied, quickly cleaning some tears that fell from her eyes.

Dig smiled softly.

"Silly girl… It was not your fault… For a genius you can be incredibly dumb sometimes… Never feel like you are the odd one… I'm the soldier turned driver turned vigilante's friend turned CEO's black driver… and don't even let me get started on those three, okay? A shrink would have a field day with all that craziness… You are probably the sanest of us all…" Diggle said and she realized what he was doing. He, John Diggle, former soldier, was trying to cheer her up by making fun of himself and their friends. And she loved him for that.

"I know, okay? It was stupid… But I was feeling insecure and with everything that was happening with me it just blew out…" she replied, laughing sadly.

"What was happening with you?" Oliver echoed from the door. None of them had noticed him lurking around the entrance, or if Diggle noticed, since that man was almost as good as Oliver, he didn't show.

Felicity bit her lower lip, unsure of what to say. But now was not the time to lie or deceive, they deserved the truth, just like they gave her during their various conversations. It was a door she kept locked for too long and now they deserved to step inside as well, they were her boys after all.

"A friend of my father… He found me and gave me some of his things… It was a bit too much realizing that he never really wanted to leave me, but just couldn't put up with my mother anymore…" Felicity tried to say nonchalantly, but both men could see the pain behind her blue irises.

"Felicity…" Oliver whispered, reaching for her hand while Diggle grabbed her other one.

"He died, you know? Even if I wanted to talk to him, I couldn't…" she said, and for the first time she let herself cry for her father, or at least, the image of a father she wished she had. She wasn't sure if what hurt her the most was the loss of that bit of innocence she still had, buried deep into her heart, that still remembered how it felt to have something that resembled a father.

Oliver and Diggle looked at each other and squeezed her hands.

She told them a bit of what she knew, before she was too tired to continue.

While that, they held her hands and sat beside her after she fell asleep.

In those moments they were not Team Arrow, the heroes of Starling City, they were just Oliver and John and Felicity, three friends broken in different degrees and because of different situations, that knew the best and worst of each other. That saw too much and would probably see even more in the future. That relied in each other like family, because that was what they were, even if, sometimes, they forgot.

I miss the Team Arrow with capital T! And I love Diggle and Lance!

You might think Felicity is being overemotional about her father since he left her, but, as someone that grew up without a very present father figure, I can relate a bit, even if she is, by far in a worst situation. She is sad not only because the man that was biologically her father died, but because that little girl that always hoped he would come back would never see her dream come true.