Dreaming
Two days later, Felicity, Diggle, Thea, Roy, and Laurel have a quiet funeral for Oliver.
They aren't ready for the city or the world at large to know, and there's no body to bury. It's Thea's idea to break into the old Queen estate to set up a memorial for Oliver there, right between Robert's old tombstone and Moira's new one, which rests where Oliver's used to before he had it torn down two years ago.
Diggle searches the grounds and finds a rock large enough to use as a headstone. He heaves it back to the site of the Robert and Moira's graves. Roy offers to help him, but Diggle shakes his head.
It's something he wants to do alone.
As Diggle hacks away at the rock, carving Oliver's name into it, Felicity wanders off quietly to find a stone to place on his grave. She finds the perfect one and brings it back, just as Diggle stands, wiping sweat off his forehead.
It's a simple headstone, and when she sees what Diggle has carved there, Felicity doesn't fight the tears.
Oliver Queen. Brother, friend, hero.
The five of them stand over the stone quietly, waiting for someone to say something. But they're all grieving in their own ways, and no one knows what to say. Diggle's words say it all.
Finally, Felicity holds up the stone she found. It's rough and bumpy on one side, but smooth as silk on the other, and it's covered in a bright sheen of green moss. It reminds her so much of Oliver, who could be hard and tough one minute, but gentle and kind the next.
"Jewish tradition," she says quietly, holding the stone out so they can all see it. "I know he wasn't Jewish, but…." She chokes up, unable to continue, as she thinks about how she said these same words mere months ago over Sara's grave.
She steps forward and places her token down next to the headstone, running her hand gently along the words carved into it.
She stands, and the only words she finds to say are the only words that matter; words she should have said a long time ago.
"I love you, Oliver."
She steps back, tears falling quietly down her cheeks.
Laurel and Roy walk away silently, heading off to the garden where Felicity found her stone, and she knows they're off in search of their own.
Diggle steps forward next. He bends down and strokes the headstone in the same way Felicity did.
He's already placed his own stone.
Standing up and stepping back, Diggle whispers, "You were like a second brother to me, Oliver. I'm gonna miss you, man. I just…I wish I could have saved you."
He steps back, wiping at his eyes, and Felicity wants to go to him, to hug him, but she barely has enough energy to keep herself standing. She doesn't know how to comfort someone else.
Laurel comes back first and places a pinecone next to Felicity's stone.
"I still remember our first Christmas together. It was the first time you told me you loved me. I wish…I wish I could have said goodbye."
It hits Felicity, now more than ever, that Oliver couldn't have had enough time to say goodbye to everyone that he cared for.
Roy finally comes back and places his own stone next to the other tokens. Felicity smiles when she notices that it's shaped like an arrowhead.
"You never lost faith in me, even when I had lost faith in myself. You were my hero, Oliver, and you always will be. I wish I had told you that."
Roy steps away and moves to stand beside Thea.
Thea stares at the headstone, and they all wait in silence, lost in their own thoughts.
Finally, Thea moves forward and kneels down on the ground. She pulls from her pocket the hosen that Oliver gave her when he came home. She places it gently with the rest of their tokens.
"Oliver…I've already lost you once. I can't…I can't do it again." She reaches out, runs her hands over the words Diggle carved so tenderly. "How could you leave me again?"
She breaks down at the foot of her family's graves, and the sight of Thea's grief has Felicity in tears once more. She reaches down deep, finds a strength she didn't know she still had – a strength she will need desperately in the weeks to come – and forces her feet to move.
She kneels down at Thea's side and pulls her close, hugging her tightly. Thea hugs her back, and the two women take what comfort they can in each other.
It's not the last time Felicity says, "I love you."
On the last day of Hanukkah, as she lights the last candle on her menorah, Felicity whispers, "I love you, Oliver."
No one answers back.
She says it the next day, on Christmas, when she, Roy, Thea, Diggle, and Laurel sit around Thea's giant Christmas tree and tell stories about Oliver. She doesn't tell them what Oliver said to her before he left. She shared Oliver's words with John, but she won't share them with anyone else.
Oliver hadn't expected her to say them back, and Felicity knows that if she had, he may never have gone. And as horrible and selfish as it makes her feel – even if it means that Oliver never left to save his sister – Felicity wishes with every fiber of her being that she had said those words back to him.
Instead she whispers them into the quiet, pine scented air.
"I never told him that I love him."
On New Year's Eve, she sits at home alone on her couch. Everyone else has gone to Diggle's house, but Felicity has decided that she needs to be alone. She finds Mrs. Fernandez's cat Francisco howling miserably outside her door and takes him inside. She lets him eat a bit of tuna from a can, then cuddles with him on the couch to watch the ball drop.
5…4…3…2…1. Happy New Year!
Felicity cuddles Francisco close to her and whispers "I love you" into his fur.
The cat sleeps in her bed that night.
The next morning she cuts off all of her hair. It's sloppy and uneven, and she figures she'll need to see a stylist at some point, since her brown roots are showing more than they have in years, but for now she just doesn't care.
New year, new beginnings.
She brings Francisco back to Mrs. Fernandez and heads off to the Arrow Cave.
She finds Roy, Diggle, and Laurel already there.
"We came to a decision last night," Diggle says. If he notices her hair, he doesn't say anything.
"We're hoping you'll agree with us," Roy adds.
Felicity nods her head. She knows what they're going to say. It's the same realization she's already come to.
"We have to keep fighting. It's what Oliver would want."
And they do. Roy continues to fight as Arsenal. Diggle dons the hood from time to time, so that no one can connect Oliver's disappearance to the Arrow's. Felicity puts in her earpiece and does what she does best.
Laurel joins them from time to time. She's donned her own black leather jacket, and she fights in Sara's memory as The Black Canary. She still needs a lot of training, which she gets with Ted Grant, and the new Team Arrow only lets her help on their easier missions.
Felicity lets her stylist dye her hair blonde, but she refuses to let her touch the cut. She likes the messy, broken look, and the fact that she can no longer tie it up in a ponytail doesn't bother her has much as she thought it would.
Oliver always seemed to like it when she had it down.
She goes back to work for Ray on the second day of the new year. She doesn't tell him that Oliver has died; only that she has lost a really good friend.
In the end, while he never suspects that it's Oliver, he realizes that the friend she lost was more than just a friend.
"I know that look, Felicity. It's the same one I saw every time I looked in the mirror after I lost my wife."
She doesn't deny it, and when she starts to cry, he hugs her. There's nothing romantic about the hug; she's in pain, a pain he knows all too well, and he only wants to comfort her. He assures her that he will be there if she ever wants to talk.
She never does.
He brings up his plans to save the city from time to time, but Felicity's heart isn't in it, and he knows it. Eventually he stops bringing it up all together.
While Felicity continues to go to work, her heart is never really in that, either. She lives for the nights she spends in the Foundry, fighting the good fight and honoring Oliver's memory.
Before she knows it, more than a month has gone by since Oliver died. Laurel is slowly beginning to come into her own, Diggle is getting used to fighting in the hood, and Roy has finally begun to patch things up with Thea.
Every morning, Felicity wakes up with the sight of Oliver falling to his death burned into her eyelids.
Every morning, Felicity pulls herself out of bed and keeps going.
There are days when she wants to crawl under her covers and never come out. One particularly bad morning, Felicity calls Diggle sobbing, because even though she's awake she can still hear Oliver's voice calling her name as he falls off the cliff, and it scares the hell out of her. Diggle wonders if maybe she should see a therapist, but Felicity flat out refuses.
No therapist could possibly understand what she's going through.
In time, the bad days become fewer and farther between. Felicity finds new reasons to get out of bed each morning.
And then one night, Felicity doesn't dream about Oliver dying. Instead, she sees him alive and whole, and he's smiling at her. He says her name, and she wakes up, a smile on her face for the first time in nearly five weeks.
She doesn't tell anyone about the dream, afraid that if she talks about it or mentions it to anyone she'll lose it forever and never see him again.
The next night, Felicity has a similar dream. Only this time, Oliver smiles at her and tells her he loves her. Felicity wakes with the words "I love you" on her lips, and she whispers them to her empty room.
Later that day at work, Ray remarks that she looks almost happy.
Over the next two weeks, she continues to dream of Oliver. The location and the content of the dreams change constantly…but they always end the same.
One night they're in the Foundry. Oliver has just come back from catching a bad guy, and he's still in his Arrow suit. He bends down, kisses her tenderly, and tells her that he loves her.
The next night they're at Big Belly Burger. Oliver leans over the table, dunking his sleeve in a bowl of ketchup in the process, and he laughs as he says, "I love you."
Another night they're in Oliver's old office, and she brings him a cup of coffee, and instead of saying "thank you," he says, "I love you."
One night they're lying in the sand on the beach of Lian Yu. They're staring up at the starry night sky, and Felicity says something that makes him laugh. He climbs on top of her slowly, leans down, and kisses her. She moans into his mouth, and when he pulls away he smiles, leans back in, and whispers, "I love you," against her neck.
Every night, Felicity dreams of Oliver. Every night he tells her that he loves her. And every morning, Felicity wakes before she can say the words back.
She says the words into the silence of her bedroom instead, and she wishes she could have said them before it was too late.
The desire to return to sleep and finally tell Oliver how she feels is powerful; it takes every bit of strength she has to get out of bed each morning and move on.
Sixty-two days after Oliver left to fight Ra's Al Ghul, Felicity dreams that Oliver makes love to her. Afterward, he holds her close and whispers "I love you," into her hair. Felicity wakes to an ache that suffuses her entire body and leaves her shaking. She finds herself alone in her bed, as she knew she would, and she says, "I love you, Oliver," with a whimper.
Sixty-three days after Oliver left to fight Ra's Al Ghul, Felicity wakes from a dreamless sleep, and she starts to cry. She hasn't cried in weeks, but she's gotten used to seeing Oliver in her dreams, and she's terrified of losing that.
It feels like she's losing Oliver all over again.
She wanders through her work day, unable to focus on anything. Ray lets her leave early, even tells her to take a few days off, because he knows that something is wrong.
She heads to the Foundry earlier than she usually would, only to find that she's not alone.
Diggle and Roy are there already. Diggle is hugging someone, and when he steps away, Felicity feels the ground fall out from under her.
It can't be.
"Oliver?" She whispers it so quietly she's not even sure she's said anything.
And then he smiles at her, and it's so much like the smile she saw in her dreams that she feels herself smiling back, even as her eyes fill with tears.
"Felicity." Oliver says her name in the way that only he can say it, and his voice is so familiar and beautiful it makes her heart ache.
Roy and Diggle leave the room at some point, but Felicity doesn't notice. Her feet move her slowly toward him, and she doesn't notice that, either. The only thing she's aware of is him. Alive and whole and standing in front of her like he never left.
Finally, she stands close enough to touch him, and she does. She places her hand gently over his chest, right over the spot where the sword entered him. She can feel the scar of the wound through his shirt, but he's warm and his heart is beating steadily and he's alive.
She stares up into his eyes, her tears falling without shame. She opens her mouth, and she wants to say so many things: "You were dead" and "how are you alive?" and "I don't understand." But when she finally speaks, she finds that the only words she has are the only words that matter.
"I love you, Oliver."
He smiles at her and pulls her close, and when Felicity feels his heart beating against her own, she knows that this time, it isn't a dream.
...the end...