AN: Here be spoilers for 3x09. Please check your heart at the door. I'm so so sorry in advance. This is quick, dirty, and totally unedited.
Felicity becomes aware of things slowly. First it's the smell of ash in her nostrils, followed by the overwhelming sense of loss. She almost feels like pieces of her may be missing, but she can't quite seem to move to catalog her injuries. She realizes she can hear voices...Oliver's and Dig's. Deep and soft, and for reasons that make no sense to her, she simply revels in the timbre of Oliver's voice, in the familiarity of the exchange between the two men she has spent the past two years with. But there is a sense of wrongness that becomes unbearable, and suddenly she can't fight it anymore. She gasps awake, his name falling from her lips in a cry of desperation. Oliver is suddenly over her, speaking to her in that soft voice he seems to reserve just for her. "Hey, it's okay. You're safe. I'm here." The steady blue oceans that are his eyes hold her gaze, his face covered in soot and his suit in tatters. She can feel the cool surface of the med bay table under her, the familiar lighting of the lair failing to give it's usual sense of comfort.
Felicity can't bring herself to look away him, but she knows something is very, very wrong. There is a sense of déjà vu that is nearly suffocating, like she has been here before. But there is also a weight of foreboding, a knowledge that something is terribly, terribly wrong. She's wearing the red dress she had chosen for their dinner date, except that was a lifetime ago.
A shadow suddenly falls over them, and she cries out a warning to Oliver. But he doesn't look away from her, he simply raises the edges of his lips in that soft smile that made her fall in love with him, the one that seems just for her. The shadow materializes into a man, dressed in floor length robes. There is a sickening sound, and both Felicity and Oliver look down to the end of the blade that is now inexplicably sticking out from Oliver's chest. She screams as she reaches for him, but she suddenly can't reach him. It's like he's being pulled away from her. He looks up, meeting her gaze as blood begins spilling from his mouth. "I love you," he whispers. And then he is gone.
Felicity is screaming, and she doesn't know how long it takes her to realize she's in her own bed. She rests her head on her knees, trying desperately to bring air into her lungs and stop the tears. She doesn't even know how she has any tears left to cry. Her mind slowly sorts out the dream from reality. Oliver said those words to her months ago, after their failed date. He didn't die then. But he's gone now. It has been 37 days since Nyssa returned to Starling City, bearing Oliver's jacket and news of his death at the hands of Ras al Ghul.
For 37 days, they had all floundered along, trying to find purpose in the mission. Diggle wears the green suit regularly (but not Oliver's, because even Oliver's arms were not as big as Diggle's). Roy patrolled at night and did his best to keep an eye on Thea, who had become increasingly distraught about Oliver's disappearance. The mission reminded Felicity of Oliver, and it was hard for her to be in the foundry. The place had once felt like home, but now it served as a reminder of all that had been lost. She had tried four times in the last week to take his suit off the mannequin, because she couldn't be in the foundry without looking at it and thinking of him. She couldn't bring herself to do it though, because that would be an admission that she accepted he was gone, and that he was never coming back. She wasn't ready to do that yet, because to admit he was gone, that he died without her telling him how she felt, is absolutely unthinkable.
She stumbles out of bed and digs in her dresser drawer. It only takes a few seconds to find the shirt . . .she's been pulling it out all too often lately, and she knows that this can't be a healthy thing. She runs her fingers over the fine material and brings it to her nose, even though it doesn't smell like him after nearly a year in her closet. She sits back on her bed and holds that stupid shirt, thinking about the night she took a bullet for Sara, her friend, a woman who Oliver once loved. She thinks about Oliver, in her oxycodon stilted memory, cupping her cheek and telling her she would always be his girl. They are both dead now, and it hurts. the tears are falling again, and she wonders if there is a limit to how much a person can cry. This makes her think of Laurel, and the very different circumstances of Oliver's first death. How hard it must have been, to lose him and Sara at the same time, and to know that they died while betraying her trust. She couldn't imagine living with that at all, yet alone for five years. At least Felicity knew, despite everything, that Oliver loved her. Her demon to bear was that she couldn't be certain he knew she loved him back.
She left for Palmer Industries before the sun came up. Perhaps if she buried herself in her work for the day, exhausting herself past the point of reason, she would be too tired to dream when she finally fell asleep. Maybe on day 38, she wouldn't dream of him. But then again, dreams were the only place where she could see him anymore.