A/N First of all, I would like to thank the wonderful olicityalways on tumblr for creating the awesome GIF sets for this story and for indulging me when I constantly ask for her opinion on the many ideas I throw in her direction. I'm hoping she will also be my beta reader, but I'm afraid to ask since she has already done a lot for this fic.
I know this chapter isn't as long as the others, but it has been hard to concentrate with all the season finales going on. The good news is that I have plenty of time to write since I'm on break from school (when I'm taking summer credits so I can graduate faster but it is a light load) so I will be able to update faster. The next one should be up in a few days.
What may have been, what could have been
Chapter 9
"Where is he?" Barry said, loudly as he made sure for the tenth time that everything was in its proper place. He had brought a lot of equipment with him and what he hadn't been able to bring, Felicity had procured at no small cost.
It seemed almost comical that someone like him was worried about Oliver being late. Barry was sure that in at least one dictionary in Central City had his picture right next to the word tardy. That story, however, is for another time.
All his attention was focused on making sure that the Oliver's procedure would have no complications.
"Well, everything's ready and in place." He told the blonde staring at the clock. Except for Oliver, but he wasn't going to say that allowed.
Barry wasn't the only one that was hyper aware of Oliver's absence. Felicity had not stopped staring at the clock since her tablet's alarm went off. Barry had told her that time was of the essence when it came to the serum. Oliver's mind and body would continue to degenerate until eventually there would be nothing left to save.
She berated herself silently for allowing him to leave her presence in the first place. It was something she would have normally never done except for her need to personally make sure that all the equipment had been bought and readied. She should have insisted that he go with her or at the very least have Dig accompany him in case he took a turn for the worse.
Instead, Dig was now searching the city for him while she ran a facial recognition program on her tablet.
"He must really love you."
Barry's statement brought her out of her thoughts.
"W-What?' She stammered.
Barry looked up from the vial of blue liquid he was holding in his hands. 'Oliver. He must really love you if he is prepared to do this."
Felicity suppressed a shudder at his words. "It's that bad?" She had hoped against hope that the process would not be as painful as Barry had described.
Barry nodded apologetically. "I'm afraid so. Mind you, there really isn't a way for me to test how painful it is going to be, but all my research so far has indicated that it would be."
Felicity simply tilted her head to acknowledge what he told her. She was afraid that if she looked anywhere aside from the clock or her tablet she would lose any reservoir of strength she had left and the last thing Oliver needed when he finally walked through the door was to see her crying uncontrollably.
Then, all of a sudden, through some miracle her tablet began to beep loudly to indicate that a possible match for Oliver's face had been found. It was several hours old, but it was the first sign they had seen of him.
She was about to send the coordinates of his location to Dig when she suddenly recognized the location her tablet was pointing to. The color drained from her face as she ran for her purse. She slung it over her shoulder and made for the exit as fast as she could, all the while yelloing for Barry to be ready when she brought back Oliver.
Almost all too fittingly, the clouds gathered ominously over the graveyard. They seemed to swirl angrily overhead as if the very air felt offended at the man who now sat beside the grave of Tommy Merlyn. The low rumble of thunder echoed their displeasure at the effrontery they were bearing witness to. How dare you show yourself here, they seemed to say.
Fitting enough, the gray clouds slowly began to empty their contents in an effort to join the ever growing chorus of voices that told Oliver Queen that he should not be there. The rain drops splattering on the ground were deafening in the once silent graveyard, but even they were nothing compared to the loud thumping that could be heard as the massive droplets of water reached the cold surface of Tommy's headstone. The sound was so terrifyingly loud that he was sure that the stone had cracked and broken from the impact.
A shiver suddenly ran up through Oliver's spine that he was sure had nothing to do with the cold water that was seeping through his clothes. He had experienced the cold from being damp before and this was nothing like that. During his first months on Lian Yu he had spent more time soaked to the bone than dry. The only clothes he had then were the ones he was wearing when the Queens's Gambit went down and they were poor protection from the elements.
The bone-chilling cold he felt now left no corner of his body untouched. It traversed his skin and bones in an attempt to taunt him. As soon as he tried to focus on it, the feeling had moved on to another part if his body.
"I'm losing it, buddy." Oliver sighed heavily to the grave of his friend.
"You're only now realizing that?"
Oliver jumped up from where he had been sitting against the grave. By instinct, he was crouched in an attack position almost instantly. It was rare for someone to sneak up on him, even in the rain.
But instead of some random villain, Oliver found himself staring into Tommy's easy going smile. He blinked in confusion at what he was seeing. Tommy was dead, yet, here he was standing in front of Oliver as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
He was dressed as Oliver always remembered, easy-fitting khakis, a dress shirt with a sport jacket on top. Even his posture was the same. If Oliver didn't know better, Tommy was ready for an epic night on the town just like what they used to do on a nightly basis before he had been ship wrecked.
"I- I dint understand. Tommy? Are you really here?"
Tommy walked closer, ignoring Oliver's question and asking one of his own.
"Why are you here?" Tommy made his way over to his own grave and studied the inscription and continued speaking when Oliver didn't give him an answer.
"That's it, huh?" He said, disappointed. "Somehow I had imagined my grave as something a little more grand."
He moved his gaze towards Oliver. "You know what I mean, right? I wanted people clamoring to write something on my tomb. Perhaps something about how epic my life had again, I probably should be grateful that it didn't say Thomas Merlyn, son of a mass murderer. Betrayed by his best friend. What a fool he had been."
Those words struckOliver's already fragile psyche like a sharp knife. "I never wanted to hurt you. Please, Tommy, you have to believe me. I just wanted to protect you."
Tommy's laughing howl was loud and mocking.
"Protect me?" Tommy was seething. "PROTECT ME? YOU KILLED ME!"
A bright read stain began forming at the front of Tommy's shirt. It continued to spread until it started dripping from the edges. His face began to pale and began to contort with unspeakable pain. Tommy began to claw at his chest in an effort to remove whatever it was that has caused the injury.
Again instinct took over for Oliver, delusion or not he could not bear the sight of his closest friend in agony. He raced forward, reaching for his friend.
Only now there was no one there. Oliver grasped nothing but empty air.
"I wasn't the only one was I?" A voice sneered from behind him. Oliver turned and his went wide at what he saw. They were all there, those that had died because of him. Body after body lay on the damp grass, filling the very air with the putrid small of death and decay.
Their lifeless eyes stared blankly, but their voices whispered loudly in his brain. Why,Oliver? Why did you let us die? The words repeated over and over until Oliver felt that he had one Verdant's speakers stuck on repeat in his head. Their voices may have blended as one, but he could still pick out who each one belonged to. His father, his mother, Shado, Tommy, and even Slade. They were not alone either. Even faces and voices he had not expected started haunting him. The tied up prisoner on Lian Yu who claimed that he too had been ship wrecked was there. His face face was just as beaten and bloodied as when Oliver had made the decision that it was too great of a risk to trust him. Peter was there also. With eyes filled with condescending judgement, he asked Oliver why he let him sacrifice himself for nothing. Alexi Leonov was there too, a man who died because Oliver had demanded for his help at gunpoint.
There were so many bodies, so many whispering in his head that Oliver could no longer think properly. Mud splashed across his pants as he sank to his knees. He brought his hands up to his ears in a futile effort to blot out the sound. But they were merciless in their assault. They battered down Starling City's hooded protector until he was nothing more than a whimpering mess.
"Stop. Please, I'll do anything... Just make them stop."
And just like that, they did. At least the voices did anyway. The bodies still stared at him, their gaze seemed to be cutting into his very soul. Tommy stood at their center, idly fingering the metal rod imbedded on his chest.
"Why are you doing this?" Oliver begged.
"Because you made a promise once. A promise that all the death you have caused would not be for nothing. And now you want to give all that up?" Tommy's face was crestfallen. The disappoint clearly readable in his features.
"The mirakuru-" Oliver tried to explain.
"Will give you the power to destroy your enemies." Tommy finished for him.
"But I'll die too."
"But before you do, you will have strength to weed out every last criminal in Starling and crush them with you bare hands. Kill them all, Ollie. Be the hero you promised to be. Don't take the serum."
Tommy scoffed angrily when he saw the hesitation still in Oliver's eyes. "What is it then? Is the great Oliver Queen, afraid to die? You should have died so many times before. What makes you more deserving to live than anyone one of us. Who gave you the right to survive?"
Oliver was close to the brink now. He could not deny the truth in what his friend was telling him. How selfish he was to put his own happiness before the safety of the city. How could he allow the death of so many to be in vain?
He couldn't... He would get up, get back to the foundry then Felicity could give him a lost of every-
His thoughts came to a complete stop. Felicity, he had made a promise to herself as well. He had promised that she would not lose him.
As if to answer his thoughts, Tommy raised his arm and pointed to new figures that seemed to come out of nowhere. Roy, Thea, laurel, Sara, and Diggle surrounded the pile of bodies to join in on the blank stares. Slowly their faces began to contort with pain. Cuts and bruises began to liter their bodies as they took their places among the ever growing pile of deaths that stained his soul red.
"Must this come to pass as well before you accept the truth, Ollie? Must they die too before you accept your fate?" Tommy shook his head in disbelief. Gingerly he walked over to where Oliver still knelt on the grass and mud.
"Poor Oliver Queen. No father. No mother. No Tommy. Everyone you come into contact with ends up dead. You are alone and you will always be alone, that is what you deserve."
"I deserve to be alone. I deserve to die." Oliver repeated, giving in.
"No, you don't," a new voice broke the stupor he was in.
And just as the light broke through the gray clouds, Felicity broke through the darkness that threatened to consume Oliver Queen. She knelt beside him, her soft touch was a stark reminder of why he fought so hard to fight.
"You of all people deserve to be happy," and just like that, Felicity pulled him back from the brink yet again.
To say Oliver was confused was an understatement. Was she yet another vision that was conjured up to torment him. "Tommy said-"
Felicity didn't let him finish. She knew by now that he wasn't in his right state of mind and whatever he was seeing was being manipulated by the massive amounts of mirakuru in his system. If Roy said that he had hallucinated an image of Thea asking him to kill her, she shuddered to think what Oliver's fragile mind could come up with.
"Oliver," Felicity sighed as drops of rain obscured her vision through her glasses. "Do you honestly think that Tommy Merlyn, the man you grew up with, would ever tell you that you deserve to live and die alone?"
Oliver shook his head vehemently. "No, you aren't here. Felicity would want me to be a hero." There was no doubt in his mind. Just as Shado appeared to Slade because of the miarakuru, Oliver was sure this Felicity was conjured by the drug to confuse and disorient him.
She was losing him to the mirakuru. He began to murmur and mumble to himself. He was no longer coherent half the time, but she was able to make out the gist of it all.
Slowly Felicity was starting to comprehend what was happening. The mirakuru was playing a dangerous game with his already fragile emotions. He was being torn in two different directions. As long as Felicity had known him, Oliver and the Arrow were one and the same. Now that he had to lose one of those personas he couldn't reconcile choosing the hero he had promised to be or having the life that he wanted.
Felicity couldn't help but feel the sting in her heart as Oliver's subconscious seemed to struggle between choosing to be with her or not. He had told her once before that he had never planned on being happy, or even surviving his crusade. This was how he saw himself dying- as a hero.
But then he met her and slowly things began to change. It was subtle at first, barely even recognizable. Then as time passed, Felicity began to wonder if their lingering touches and longing looks were leading to something more, just around the time Oliver began to accept his own feelings for her. She was attracted to him, of that Felicity had no doubt, but the very idea of them together had been absurd to her and even now she could scarcely believe that he wanted her to be the woman in his life.
Then Slade and the mirakuru happened and before she knew what was happening, all their feelings were laid out-to-bare without any of the usual confessions or declarations of love. Things were rushing by so quickly that neither of them had truly stopped to think about what they were asking of one another; what they meant to one another.
"I love you," She whispered. This time there was no rambling from an incoherent thought, no blushing in embarrassment as she said something she had not meant to say. Her voice was soft, yet full of conviction.
Oliver's eyes seemed to snap open to stare at her as if he had hard time believing what she had just said.
Her hands were shivering from both cold and emotion, but she clasped his hands tightly and refused to let him go.
"I love you, Oliver. Stay with me, okay?" she repeated. She hadn't said it just to bring him back to her or even to convince him to take the serum. There was more to it. She needed to say it just as much as she needed him to hear it.
Oliver blinked, coming back to himself a little.
Felicity leaned in and touched her forehead against his. Their mouths were so close now that they shared the same breath. "I love you. Do you understand?"
His lips told her that he did.
Oliver blinked away the tears as her words reached him. Felicity had a way of reaching him with both logic and heart that no one else ever could. He wondered then if he had been hallucinating the whole time, why hadn't an image of Felicity been conjured to drive him over the edge.
The answer was as simple as it was breathtaking. Even on the brink of everlasting despair and corruption from the mirakuru, his mind could never see Felicity has anything other than the light and strength she had always been for him.
A/N Please review, even if it is just to say that you like it or don't like it. they keep me going.