Linked (Twinkie)

(A/N: Loosely based on the Lynburn Legacy by Sarah Rees Brennan. And by "loosely" I just mean that I borrowed the basic premise of being confronted in real life with one's imaginary friend and ran with it. I've wanted to do this for a LONG time, so I sat down and wrote it a couple of months ago.)

" 'I remember all the details of how you look, and I use them to tell myself stories about you,' she said in a low voice. 'I don't look at anyone else like that. I don't think about anyone else the way I think about you.'

It was the most she had ever said to him about how she felt, and she did not know how to talk about it other than by talking about stories and the way love changed hers." –Unmade, Sarah Rees Brennan

Felicity Smoak could not recall a time when she was truly alone. For as long as she could remember, there'd been another voice inside her head. His name was Oliver, and he made her laugh.

When she began to talk, "Oliver" was her first word, much to the chagrin of her parents. Her imaginary friend was her closest—and sometimes only—confidant. He was with her through everything, good and bad. When she aced a test, Oliver cheered. Her dad took her to the Strip once to ride the Stratosphere, and as she screamed the whole way down, she felt the swell of Oliver's vicarious excitement. When Dad left, Oliver knew something was wrong.

Felicity? What happened?

She swiped at the tears dripping down below her glasses.

My dad's gone, she told him. He took three suitcases with him. I don't think he's coming back.

He'd never leave you behind, Felicity. He loves you.

She held onto Oliver's hope for a long time. But even his optimism wasn't enough to keep her going forever.

They were four years apart, which made puberty incredibly awkward. Felicity figured out how to erect a series of mental walls, and she taught Oliver to do the same. It didn't keep them totally separate, but it cut down on Felicity's secondhand embarrassment and made her own adolescence a little more bearable.

By the time Oliver was kicked out of his third Ivy League school, Felicity had been accepted to MIT early decision and she'd just about had it with Oliver wasting his potential.

"You're not even trying," she muttered as she stood in front of the microwave, waiting for her pizza rolls to heat up. She only spoke to him out loud when she was really annoyed.

I'm just not smart like you. She felt him sigh.

"Stop comparing yourself to me—I'm a genius. You're plenty smart. You were Harvard smart and Yale smart. You're definitely Stanford smart. I don't know what your problem is."

"Whose problem?"

Felicity jumped. "Mom! What are you doing home?"

Donna Smoak spread her arms wide. "I told my boss I needed to leave early to celebrate my daughter getting into college. Who were you talking to?"

"No one. So how are you here?" Felicity asked. "Your boss is a hardass."

"It was a crappy job anyway."

"Mom! Did you quit or get fired?"

Donna shrugged. "Does it matter?"

Felicity was glad she had a full scholarship and wouldn't need to depend on her mom for money. It was pretty clear that was no longer a viable option anyway.

She couldn't pinpoint when she and Oliver started drifting apart. Felicity started college. She was always one of the smartest people in the room, but she was no longer the smartest. She was actually being challenged, and it was exhilarating.

Oliver got kicked out of his fourth school. He divided his time between partying with his best friend Tommy and hanging out with his on-again-off-again girlfriend, Laurel. He rarely talked to her anymore, and she was pretty sure it was her voice he was trying to drown out with the booze and sex.

They were so different. They always had been, but this time it seemed that those differences couldn't be overcome. Oliver kept his walls up all the time and stopped communicating directly. Felicity tried, but she couldn't help chattering in her head even more than she did out loud.

Then Cooper Seldon showed up in one of her programming classes. Hot, edgy, and into her. Their relationship was inevitable, immediate, and immolating. If Oliver hadn't been so distant, she wouldn't have dared to sleep with Cooper. What would sex be like while she had another guy in her head who could sense her every emotion?

One night, as they spooned in Felicity's dorm bed, sweaty and sated, she dared to tell the boy she loved about the other boy in her life.

"Felicity, babe, you know I love you, but . . . that's crazy. Literally crazy. Like, you should be paying someone with a higher degree or a prescription pad to tell you how to fix it."

She looked at him over her shoulder. "I'm not crazy."

"You hear a voice in your head. Since birth," said Cooper. "You're twenty years old, and your imaginary friend still talks to you. It's not cute—it's certifiable."

Felicity sat up, clutching the sheet around her. She felt more naked now than when Cooper had unhooked her bra earlier.

"I told you, he doesn't really talk to me anymore," she said, getting dressed. "But I can tell he's still there."

Cooper propped himself up on one elbow. "Don't you see this isn't normal? You've created this whole backstory for him. A story that evolves over time."

"If I made it all up, then why would I do this to myself?" she asked him. "Why would I ever choose to go through puberty with a boy in my head? Why would I make him a rich slacker who's screwing his girlfriend's sister behind her back?"

"You're very . . . creative?" Cooper suggested. "Wait, were you thinking about him when we—"

Felicity gathered up his clothes and threw them at him.

"I'm going to take a shower," she said. "You better not be here when I get back."

"Felicity . . ."

"I'm not crazy," she said darkly before leaving the room.

Felicity stood under the shower head, the water turned up as hot as she could stand it. Cooper's words had hit a nerve. She was ten when her mom started dragging her to child psychologists, church counselors, naturopaths, anyone she thought could talk Felicity back into reality. But she'd had Oliver to coach her through each encounter, except the last one.

She was sixteen and had been humiliated in the girls' locker room at school, Carrie-style. She locked herself in a bathroom stall and cried so hard that she threw up. When she sat up and wiped her mouth with a wad of toilet paper, she felt a familiar prickle in the back of her mind.

Hey.

"Hey," she said back.

What's going on? I was in class, but I had to leave when I started feeling how upset you were.

"Liar. You never go to class."

I go to this one. The TA is hot. She has these great—

"I can't deal with your grossness right now, Oliver."

Felicity, just tell me what's wrong.

"I don't want to say. Worst moment of my life. Let's just leave it at that."

Worse than your dad leaving?

"Oliver!"

Just trying to help you keep things in perspective.

"You're not helping."

I know you don't want to hear this, but, Felicity, it's just high school. In a couple of years, you'll be out of there. You'll be tearing it up at some fancy school—

"MIT."

Whatever. The point is, all this dumb high school stuff isn't going to matter. You're smarter than all of them put together, and when you get to college, everyone will be too busy worrying about their own problems to give you shit about yours.

Felicity sighed. "I know you're right. I just—I need to a wallow a little."

I feel you. Wallow away. I'll be right here.

Felicity learned when she got home that she hadn't been alone in the bathroom. One of her tormentors had followed her in and overheard everything she'd said to Oliver. She'd been so upset that she'd spoken her side of the conversation out loud instead of in her mind. The girl just happened to be a childhood acquaintance who remembered that Felicity once had an imaginary friend named Oliver. The knowledge that Felicity hadn't grown out of it was too tempting to go unshared, and soon Felicity found herself in front of a psychologist specializing in adolescent on-set schizophrenia.

Felicity gave him all the right answers. No, she didn't really believe her imaginary friend was real. She just talked to him when she was upset, but it was more like talking to herself. The girl who overheard may have said it sounded like a whole conversation, but that girl had just bullied her and would say anything to get her in more trouble.

The psychologist remained unconvinced. Felicity's entire medical history was against her, filled with reports from various professionals, all of them peppered with the name "Oliver." The medication made her slow and sleepy. Her grades plummeted for the first time in her life, and she barely ate. After two months, Donna Smoak flushed the pills down the toilet.

"You're not crazy," she said, kissing the top of Felicity's head. "You have a very active mind, ever since you were a little girl. I'm sorry I let all those quacks try to squash it."

Her mom's words weren't reassuring enough to wipe away those experiences, or that horrible, spiraling feeling that she would fall into a hole she could never crawl out of without help. It was still a sensitive issue, and Felicity and her mother never spoke of it again.

If Oliver had listened in on her side of the conversation with Cooper, or picked up on her emotions, he didn't say anything, and Felicity wasn't picking up anything much from him, either. Just a flicker here and there, of mild amusement, pain, shock, the occasional stab of despair. She ached to reach out to him, but she was determined not to make the first move. He was the one who'd pushed her away, after all.

But then, as she turned off the shower and wrapped her towel around her, there he was. Hesitant. Almost weak.

Felicity.

Oliver never questioned Felicity's presence in his head. He didn't wonder why or how—he just accepted it, accepted her. And why not? She was something special.

He had to be careful about suddenly laughing in silent rooms, or smiling at nothing, and he learned quickly not to mention her name at all around Laurel. He'd tried to explain Felicity to her, but it was clear that Laurel thought she was just another girl he'd fooled around with.

It was a conversation with Thea that brought reality crashing down in front of him. She was eleven, looking at some old pictures and laughing about setting out an extra chair at dinner for Clovis, her imaginary friend.

"I grew up with an imaginary friend too," Oliver said to her.

"Who?" she asked. "Or was it an 'it' like with my friend Robin? Her imaginary friend was a centaur named Abernathy."

He smiled. The real smile, not the Ollie Queen fake one. "No, mine's a person . . . A girl, in fact."

Thea rolled her eyes. "Why am I not surprised?"

"It's not like that. She's not like that," he said. "She's different. She's funny and smart, really smart."

Why, thank you.

Oliver almost jumped. He'd gotten so good at keeping up his mental walls. Most of the time only his strongest emotions poured through the cracks. But he'd slipped, and Felicity could pick up on everything he was saying.

"Ollie." Thea slowly closed the picture album. "You're talking about her like she's real, like you still imagine her all the time."

Careful there, said Felicity. Present tense is dangerous. Watch what you say, or you'll end up in therapy.

I can't concentrate on what Thea's saying with your voice in my head, Oliver told her.

We've been doing this for years. You really should be better at it by now.

"I don't imagine her," Oliver said to Thea. "I just hear her. And I can feel whatever she's feeling. But mostly I hear her. She talks a lot."

I should be offended, but it's totally true. Is it annoying? I can try to tone it down.

"No!" Oliver blinked, his own surprise mirrored on Thea's face. He hadn't meant to speak out loud.

"Ollie, are you . . . are you crazy?"

He glanced at her. Her eyes were wide, and she was staring hard at him. She looked legitimately worried. Oliver pasted on his fake it's-all-good smile.

"Of course not, Speedy," he said. "I grew out of it a long time ago. Just talking about it made me remember how real she seemed to me when I was little."

"Oh, okay." Thea smiled. "If you were crazy, I'd still love you, you know. But then they'd take you away, and that's not—"

"Thea, no one's taking me away," said Oliver. "I'm not going anywhere, and you will never lose me, okay?"

He felt Felicity sigh. His words were meant for her too. He couldn't say he loved her—she wouldn't understand. He didn't understand it himself. But he could tell her this.

A year later, Oliver was retching over the side of a life raft as the storm continued to rage overhead, all thought of Felicity driven from his mind. Not until he washed up on the shore of Lian Yu did he think to call out to her.

Felicity.

Ugh, I really don't want to talk to right now. I just fought with my boyfriend about you.

Stupidly, though he was alone with no food or water and his father's dead body lay only a few feet away, there was only one thing he could focus on.

You have a boyfriend?

He couldn't put a name to the emotion she was projecting, but he could almost feel her rolling her eyes.

Yes, Oliver, I have a boyfriend. Try not to act so shocked.

I'm not. It's just . . . No, it's stupid.

Her tone softened. Whenever you get hesitant, it's usually something serious. Something really important to you.

I don't want to say it.

Are you talking out loud? she asked.

No, of course not. I learned that lesson a lot earlier than you did.

A ripple of her amusement tinged with sadness traveled through him like a shiver. God, he missed her.

Ah, fun times. Anyway, saying it in your head isn't quite like saying it out loud, is it? So say whatever it is you were going to say. I can wait . . . Not forever, because I have an 18th century European history class in about ten minutes and I'm still dripping wet from my shower, but—

Oliver stared out at the ocean that had just stripped away nearly everything he cared about. He listened to the waves crashing and wondered if he'd ever get the saltwater tang off his tongue.

I thought you'd always be my girl.

Oh, Oliver.

He winced. I have to go. His walls went up. He'd always pictured them like the vault doors that would slam into place in heist movies when the high-tech security system was tripped. I have to go bury my father was what he couldn't bear to tell her.

The walls stayed in place over his years inside the crucible. They never came all the way down. He'd always been better at it than her. Hiding his true thoughts and feelings was second nature. But there were a few times when Oliver couldn't help it, when something slipped through and broadcasted clear and true.

Yao Fei's arrow in his shoulder. He couldn't hide the pain and shock. She totally freaked out, begging him to tell her he was okay, but Oliver didn't answer. He was too busy trying to survive.

The first time he killed a man. Though he found his comfort in Shado, not Felicity, he felt the weight of her sadness layer onto his.

Losing Shado was easier. Not the actual event—that was pure agony—but keeping the magnitude of it from Felicity. She'd become a lot quieter, and he could tell she was going through something, but part of him didn't care because it couldn't compare to the hellish nightmare that was his life now.

Then Oliver heard nothing from Felicity for a long time. It was just as well. If Amanda Waller knew he had a voice in his head, she might have him killed to save herself the trouble.

Only Felicity's emotions got through to him: anger, fear, disappointment, and then, one night in Maseo's apartment when he couldn't sleep, crushing despair. He nearly broke down and asked her what was wrong, but he was afraid that if he let her back in just a little bit, there'd be nothing to stop him from letting her in all the way. And that would make him vulnerable. Weak, even.

When Oliver came back from the island, there was so much going on. Reconnecting with his family and friends, dealing with his father's list, hiding his many secrets. He'd put Felicity out of his mind as much as he could, and she stayed out for the most part. Except when he was working out. During those times, his mind would go into a quieter, calmer state as he focused purely on his body and what he was doing with it. All his carefully erected barriers would fall away.

Oliver?

Her tone was tentative, but just his name coming from her sent a warm flush across his skin that couldn't be explained by the one-armed pushups he was doing.

Yeah, I'm here.

Have you ever wondered why this happened to us? she asked. I know it's not normal, though it took me a lot longer than it should have to figure that out. But in my defense, I was born with your voice in my head, so . . .

Oliver got to his feet and swiped the edge of a towel across his sweaty forehead.

I've thought about it, he said. Haven't come to any conclusions.

I think about it all the time now, she confessed. Why you, why me, if this has ever happened to anyone else, what it means . . . And . . .

And what? He chugged half a bottle of water while waiting for her answer.

And sometimes I wonder if you're real. Because that would be crazy on a whole different level.

It would be. Oliver had tried not to think about what it would mean if Felicity was more than just a very active and independent figment of his imagination. How would things change if they were two real people hearing each other's thoughts?

I try not to think about it, he said. But how about this? Tell me something real about you, something I don't already know.

What could there possibly be? You're all I've ever known.

Those words pulled at something deep inside him, loosening something that had been curled up tight and hidden in the dark for so long.

Tell me what you look like, he asked her.

Oh. Oh, no. That's a can of worms I do not want to open. Because maybe I'm not your type. Not that it matters, because this . . . this thing between us is totally platonic. Totally. Or you could just think I'm boring. I don't know. I'm just not sure I want you to know what I look like.

Oliver sighed. Would it help if I went first?

YES, she said without the slightest bit of hesitation. It made him smile.

Blue eyes, brown hair, he said as he toweled off and pulled on a clean t-shirt. It used to be blond, but it darkened in the last few years. I'm about six feet tall, and I work out, so . . .

How is that supposed to help? You sound gorgeous, and now I'm even more insecure.

Come on.

Fine. A wave of her annoyance rippled through him. Blonde, blue eyes. Glasses. I wear glasses. Should I have led with that? Some people just automatically write you off if you wear glasses. Nerd, four-eyes, all that. I wear my glasses all the time, though. I don't like my contacts. They make my eyes burn.

The more she babbled, the wider his smile became.

Shit, he thought. And of course she heard it.

What? Are glasses a deal-breaker for you? Not that it matters. I mean, obviously it knocks me out of the running, but that's assuming I ever was in the running, and I probably wasn't because—

Felicity.

He couldn't quite define the feeling she was broadcasting, but he could tell she was affected.

What?

I . . . I stubbed my toe, that's all. Nothing to do with what you said. Or thought, I guess.

Oh.

It wasn't true at all. Her rambling had been the only thing stopping him from thinking, "Shit. I'm already in love with her. If she's a real person, I am so, so screwed."

Then he started hunting Deadshot. A close call left him with no leads except for a bullet-ridden laptop. He needed a computer expert. Oliver had learned a lot during his time with A.R.G.U.S., but pulling data from a damaged hard drive was beyond his capabilities. The next day, he tucked the laptop under his arm and headed downtown to QC, where Walter happened to be in his office.

"Good afternoon, Oliver," said Walter in his crisp British accent. "What brings you here?"

"I need some help with my computer," Oliver replied. "I was hoping you could recommend someone."

Walter rested his chin on tented fingers. "A few names come to mind, but there's really only once choice. Felicity Smoak."

His heart stopped. He forgot how to breathe, or even think.

Felicity?

Working, she responded. Can we talk later? This coding is a little complicated.

"Oliver?" said Walter.

"Yeah, sorry." He caught his breath. "So who is Felicity Smoak?"

"She works in the IT department," Walter answered. "The servers crashed at our Australian offices last month, and she recovered all the data. She's not in management, seems to have some authority issues, but by all accounts she is very, very good at what she does."

The elevator ride from the executive floor to the IT department was a long one. A smart computer expert named Felicity. It had to be a coincidence. Felicity wasn't a common name, but—

Felicity?

Oliver, I'm really busy. I need to get this done before the end of the day. Is this an emergency?

Kind of, he admitted. Where do you work?

Another flicker of irritation and impatience. You know where I work.

I don't. If you've told me, I don't remember. I'm really sorry. I usually remember everything you tell me.

The IT department of a big firm in Starling City, she said. Queen Consolidated.

It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the elevator. Oliver leaned against the back wall to keep from sliding to the floor.

Oliver?

He couldn't answer.

On leaden feet, Oliver dragged himself out of the elevator and down the hall. He passed people who nodded and smiled and tried to shake his hand. He stood outside the door for a long time, knowing that as soon as he went in, it could change everything. Taking a deep breath, he entered.

The nameplate on her cubicle read "Felicity Smoak." Her back was to him. She wore a peach blouse, and her curly blonde hair was pulled back in a low ponytail that covered her ears. She turned her head slightly, and his stomach flipped when he caught sight of her glasses, and the red pen held between her teeth.

"Felicity Smoak?"

She spun her chair around.

"Hi, I'm Oliver Queen," he said. He could see her blue eyes now. And wow, she was beautiful. His gaze was drawn to her brightly colored lips.

"I know who you are." Then the color drained from her face.

Oh my God.

He couldn't help smiling. Hi.

"I know who you are," she said again, almost whispering. "You're Oliver Queen. You're my Oliver." She shut her eyes. "Not 'my' as in mine. You don't belong to me. I just meant you're real. You're the Oliver in my head. Aren't you?"

"Felicity." He leaned in, took the red pen from her, and set it on the desk. Then he grasped her hands in his. He could feel his grin stretching long-disused muscles in his face. "I've always been your Oliver."