Felicity Smoak.
Oliver stared numbly at the name that immediately caught his attention like a fish on a hook. He blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision, convinced that his eyes were playing tricks on him. It wasn't possible that she was working at his family's company, was it? He pulled up her file, searching for a picture. The face that came back was vaguely familiar, but he wasn't sure. For one thing, this woman was blonde. And she wore glasses. It didn't match how he remembered her. Maybe she had a twin? Maybe she had given him a false name; after all, she never asked for his.
He went online to search for her, to find any other pictures or websites with information, but he didn't find anything. She certainly didn't leave much of a digital footprint. He pulled up her personnel file again, and that's where he found it.
M.I.T., class of '09. Masters in Cyber Security and Computer Sciences. It was her.
His heart beat faster in his chest. He shook his head, still unable to accept this twist of fate. It was too much information to process, and he couldn't get a handle on his thoughts or emotions. He felt paralyzed, staring at the computer screen, unable to decide on his next move. If only Floyd Lawton hadn't completely obliterated the laptop with bullets…
The mission. That was what he needed to focus on. He needed to take down Floyd Lawton. He needed access to whatever was on that laptop. But he needed someone's help. The strategist inside him knew that going to the best and brightest in QC's IT department was the right option. But the man inside him…
He was paralyzed in his thoughts again. Everything stopped when he thought of her. He couldn't move forward with his mission until he figured out how to move past the wall in his mind, blocking him from processing his…feelings, or whatever.
He backed away from the desk roughly. He got up and took off his shirt. He needed to work out and clear his mind.
He was two sets into his salmon ladder rotation when his mind wandered to that fateful day that he met Felicity Smoak. He knew that as long as he lived, he would never forget the moment he laid his eyes on her. It was like seeing a beautiful, dark angel, a creature that was more than human. He remembered with amusement how she had shut down all his advances, even as he sensed that his advances were not unwelcome. He remembered with a laugh how she had physically thrown him out of her room, and the way it felt to have her delicate hand on his face as she shoved it.
He jumped off the salmon ladder with a grunt, shaking his head from his thoughts. This wasn't working. He decided to spend some time sparring against the steel beams with his blades. He hoped the noise would be enough to drown out his thoughts so he could find his center.
He focused on the rhythmic clanging of steel and the vibrations in his hands as he moved through the most complicated kata that he knew. He paid attention to his breathing and his footwork, and little by little, he felt the cold cloak of clarity descend on his consciousness, clearing away any confusion. The mission had to come first. Any discomfort he experienced as a result of who he asked for help was irrelevant. Floyd Lawton needed to be stopped. As long as he kept that in the front of his mind, everything else wouldn't matter.
He consciously brushed aside any thoughts that argued otherwise.
He was lost in a maze of steel beams, chasing after an elusive figure. Voices floated through the air, snippets of conversations from long ago.
"Do you believe in fate?"
"She's not your one and only!"
He caught a glimpse of raven hair and a lithe figure before losing her again.
"We can't hold on to the ones that pass through."
"I can't just have a moment?"
A feminine giggle echoed in the maze, and he redoubled his efforts to find her.
"As long as you keep pretending, you're never gonna find your way home."
"I'm sad that I have to leave."
Movement on his right drew his attention, and he caught a flash of blonde.
"Please let me see her again."
"Fate will find a way."
"Oliver?"
He was standing in the foyer of his house. His mother walked toward him with a look of surprise. Her hair was longer, the way it had been before the island.
"What are you doing home so early?"
"Mom, I can't keep pretending. I don't want to work for the company."
She looked at him, disappointed but unsurprised. "I'll talk to your father."
He hated that look. He saw it far too often.
It was no longer his mother that stood before him. It was Laurel instead.
"What do you mean you don't want to live with me?"
"I'm sorry, Laurel, I don't want to pretend anymore."
Hurt and anger filled her expression. "Screw you, Ollie."
A flash of lightning brightened the room for a moment. He turned and saw his father. They were on the yacht. His father put his arm around him and patted his chest. "You're lost, son."
"I know, a good friend once told me that."
Another flash of lightning. They were on the raft.
"I didn't save the city! I failed it!"
His father raised a gun to his own head.
"Dad! NO!"
He shot up in bed, gasping for breath, the sound of the gunshot still echoing in his ears. He was shaking from the images that still haunted him. He jumped out of bed and stalked into the en suite to splash cold water on his face. For a micro-second, he saw his father, dead and bloated, when he looked in the mirror. He shut his eyes immediately, trying to think good thoughts, to replace that image with better ones. Tommy's happy and slightly manic face came to mind, and he was able to take a deep breath. He looked reluctantly at the mirror again, and was relieved to see himself, still pale from his nightmare. Well, not quite a nightmare. More like memories coming to the surface.
The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, so he decided to get started on his morning. As he went through his routine, he thought about the memories his mind stirred up, particularly the ones about Felicity Smoak. He thought about the day he left Cambridge, about the conversations he had with Tommy, and then Felicity. He might have believed in fate back then, but the last five years burned away any romanticism in him. Now, he wasn't sure.
He remembered her words about the topic, that some things couldn't be explained as coincidence. Was the fact that she was an employee of QC a coincidence? Or fate?
He thought about Tommy's words to him in the coffee shop. That if she really was his one and only, fate would find a way to bring them together when they were ready. That was the punch line, wasn't it? He wasn't ready for her then, but he was even less ready for her now. There was not the slightest chance in hell he could deal with a relationship, not now. Maybe not for a very long time. Was fate cruel, then? To bring her back into his life at a time when she should stay as far away from him as possible?
He shook off his thoughts and walked into his closet to get dressed. He couldn't think about this right now. He had a job to do, and he needed to pull himself together. He did his best to empty his mind and recapture the cold logic from last night, but he knew he was deluding himself if he thought he could remain stoic about this meeting.
He stepped off the elevator at Queen Consolidated with his heart in his throat. He walked slowly toward the IT department, the bullet-ridden laptop tucked against his side and the fingers of his other hand rubbing together compulsively. He asked the first person he saw for directions to her office, and with every step his heart beat harder and faster in his chest. He took deep breaths to maintain his composure. He just had to remember the words he practiced on the way over, and everything would be okay.
He finally stepped through the doorway to her office, and the first thing he noticed was her perfume. It was fruity and floral, not the exact fragrance he remembered her in, but in the same family. He was transported briefly to the moment he sat in her room, watching her profile as she did the same thing she was doing now, concentrating on a computer monitor.
Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was wearing glasses. There was a red pen in between her brightly painted lips. She had on a very professional looking pink button down shirt with her QC badge hanging around her neck. He had a hard time reconciling this Felicity with the one who stayed in his thoughts the last seven years.
He cleared his throat to get her attention. "Felicity Smoak?" he asked tentatively.
She turned to face him, and the expression on her face as she pulled the pen out of her mouth did it for him. He finally recognized her. He recognized the bright blue of her eyes as she looked at him with shock, the shape of her lips as her mouth dropped open. It was the same exact expression he saw for a fraction of a second the first time they met, and again when he surprised her at the coffee shop.
"Hi," he said in a breathy gust. He grinned widely, and just like that, he felt a little bit like his old self. Before the shipwreck, before the island, when his biggest problem was deciding what he wanted to be when he grew up.
He saw that she recognized him, and he laughed a little when she mouthed 'Pretty Boy' with an incredulous expression. He remembered his promise to her the last time he saw her, and he decided to fulfill that promise.
"I'm Oliver Queen."
A/N: Thank you all for your patience in waiting for this chapter! This ends this portion of the story; I thought it was nicely symmetrical with the endings of the other chapters. I will most likely continue this, but it's going to have to wait a bit, because poor Oliver in Second Date is gonna burst if I don't take care of him soon. (Plus I'm super anxious to get them to their third date.)
Just a quick thanks to justanother90sbaby for lending her eye on this chapter, and mabscifiromantic for the lovely comment!fic on AO3 that I referred to a couple of times for inspiration.
Also, for those of you who don't already know, I started a forum to serve as a message blast to all of you regarding my fics. So many of you sent me love for this story and asked for this update, and I wanted to so badly to talk to you about it, but the messaging system here is underwhelming. It's in the Arrow forums, called Skimmy77's Forum. I'm test driving it, so let me know if it works for you.
EDIT: To the guest who asked if I'm ever going to update, I've left a response in my forums under the thread "Addressing Comments to First Impressions." Short answer, yes. Eventually.