Oliver's eyes opened; he looked round, a ringing in his ears, and a small orange light catches his eye in the corner. He finds it hard to breathe as there is a large piece of wood on top of him. He pushes that to the side and coughs until he can breathe properly again. Oliver was disorientated, unsure of what exactly has happened. He hears screaming, someone is calling his name. Oliver slaps his ears and tries to get rid of the ringing sound in his ears. He looks around at his home – his new home that was now destroyed. He spots the whole where the RPG had hit; it was at the side of the house, and he comes to the conclusion that, whoever has done this did not want to kill them. That person had wanted to scare them. Them. That's when he remembers Felicity. How could he have forgotten?
Oliver stands up on his feet shuffling around in the chaotic front room that was covered in rubble and dust. He started pushing things around and out of the way. Hearing a small squeak, he stopped and headed towards the noise. He saw her lying down on the ground, eyes closed, rubble on top of her and the sunflower from their kitchen table near her face.
"Felicity" he yells dropping to his knees looking for a pulse. Thankfully he finds one, searching for any visible injuries once he has removed the rubble; he lets out a sigh of relief. Picking her up in her arms and cradling her close to his chest he makes his way towards the door.
Oliver does not have the chance to open the door as it is flung open revealing Diggle and his father.
Oliver carried Felicity out of the now wrecked cottage with Diggle and Robert leading the way. Once Oliver leaves the house and is outside on the Queen Grounds, he notices Moria and Donna holding each other sobbing.
"Oliver"
"Felicity"
"Is my baby ok?" Donna asks touching her face softly as it is covered in black soot.
"She is just winded, she'll be fine," Oliver tells her as he walks towards the manor.
"I don't think that RPG was meant to kill you," Diggle said as he followed the Queens inside.
"I know, it was a message, Slade he can get to us, anytime" Oliver places Felicity onto the couch, he kneels and removes some of her hair out of her face. He shakes off his look of love and pain and replaces it with anger. "It's too easy to take us out with an RPG, Slade would want to kill us slowly, make it hurt" he shouts.
"Oliver, son, let's go into the study" Robert adds gesturing towards the study.
Oliver nods but turns to face Felicity one more time, he touches her arm lightly, and she shoots up with a gasp.
"Oliver" she gasped as she shoots up and looks at him.
Oliver sees the fear in her eyes, "Hey shh, shh, you're okay, I'm here" he whispers running his hand through her hair. Felicity immediately settled back down into the couch, letting his touch comfort her. "Shh," he continues to soothe her, Felicity eyes close and tries to let Oliver's touch wash away her headache.
"Baby," Donna says pushing Oliver out of the way so she can look at her daughter. "Oh, hunny" she mutters kissing her forehead.
"Hey, I'll right back" Oliver takes her hand in his and gives her knuckles a kiss before he moved to the study.
"Slade wants revenge; he won't stop dad," Oliver said frustrated as he pounded his fist on the desk. "It wasn't meant to kill us but what if it did? What if she was more than winded? We need to take him out now" Oliver yells.
"I understand your frustration son, I have some of the men Augusto and the others already investigating, we'll find him" Robert reassures his son.
When Oliver is done talking to Diggle and his father Oliver went back into the living room to find it empty.
"Upstairs, with Donna getting cleaned up," his mother tells him. Moira gets up off the couch and embraces her son in a tight hug. "I was so scared I thought I'd lost you ... Again" she stroked the back of his head softly. "I love you."
"I love you too" he smiles.
Oliver walked into his old room to find Donna combing Felicity's wet hair. "There you are; all the knots are out" Donna smiled as she put the comb away and stood up to find Oliver by the door. "I'll leave you to it" Donna placed a kiss on the top of her head and left the room leaving them alone.
"Hey," Felicity said as she turned to face him.
Oliver saw the nasty bruise on her forehead and winced that she was hurt. "Hi," he took a seat next to her and lightly brushed his finger over the graze on her forehead. "How you feeling?" he asked her.
"Fine, what about you?" she had being concerned when she saw the anger in his eyes and worried about what he would do.
"Don't lie" he chuckled lightly.
"A small headache, maybe an achy back but, all in all, I'm ok" she admits.
Oliver kisses her forehead and lingers for a few moments. He still does not understand how he could have fallen for her so fast and hard to the point where if anything happened to her, he wouldn't know how to go on. It scared him to think that although officially they were together, behind closed doors their relationship was in the early stages of blossoming. It scared him because their relationship still hadn't taken off, and he was at the point where he could not live without her.
"Are you alright?" Felicity pulled away and looked at him with concern in her eyes.
"I'm fine" he shrugged.
"Don't lie" she laughs as she throws back the same words he said to her.
"I'm fine, I was scared that I'd lost you" he admits. Felicity blinks several times overwhelmed that Oliver told the truth.
"You're not going to lose me" she shrugs causing him to chuckle.
The rest of the day the Queen's had upped their security and had sent men out to search for Slade. Oliver had spent the rest of the day with Felicity; they had fallen asleep holding each other. As she slept, Oliver had spent time thinking about Slade. He wondered how he was going to stop the psychopath that wanting nothing more but to kill him and his whole family. Oliver moved his fingers through Felicity's shiny golden hair trying to calm his anger.
"You think too much" she murmured into his chest. Felicity pulled up and looked at him, scratching his stubble lightly. "What you going to do?" she asks him.
"Find him, put a stop to him."
"Why has he got it in for you?" she dared asked. She had wanted to ask him before but was afraid he would get mad and say it was none of her business. Oliver sat up and leaned against the headboard, he pulled her up slowly, so they were still tangled but sitting up and facing each other.
"He blames me … and my dad for the death of the woman he loved, Shado" Oliver looked away, and Felicity knew that there was more to the story. "Shado … she was not a member of the Bratva nor did she know I was, she and I were together" Felicity eyes widened, that was not what she had expected. "I was with her and we both knew of Slade's feelings for her, to cut a long story short, Sara came back into my life and …"
"Wait Sara?" she questions with a confused look of her face.
Oliver takes a deep breath, "Right, Sara, she is my ex-girlfriend's little sister."
"Ok," Felicity says a little uneasy still a little unclear how everything was fitting together.
"Sara came back into my life, she was lost and confused and wanted to get back with me and …"
"Wait, wait" Felicity holds her hand up, "Your ex-girlfriend's sister wanted to get back with you."
Oliver looks away and exhales a heavy breath. "I cheated on my girlfriend with her sister Sara; Sara wanted to get back with me because she was in a relationship with a woman and because she is a member of the Bratva. She was afraid it would get out and wanted to get back with me." Oliver explains; he looks at her, and she nods for him to continue. "Ivo, was a man who wanted to marry Sara but once I told him that I was getting back with her, he let it go because I'm a Captain and he wasn't."
"Ok," Felicity nods again trying to understand what he was telling her.
"Slade found out that I lied, Sara and I weren't together, he told Shado and Ivo, Ivo thought that he would go against the Captain." Oliver gets up and untangles himself from her needing some space as he can feel flashes of that night threatening to appear. "Ivo had Sara and Shado tied up; he wanted me to choose between them."
Felicity gasps, her mouth is left open in shock of what he had just said. "What happened?"
"I chose" he shrugs.
Felicity swallows and looks up at him although his back is turned away. "With Shado gone, I guess you chose Sara" she points out the obvious.
"It wasn't like that, I loved Shado, she was kind and beautiful but I also love Sara," he tells her his back still away from her.
It does not go unnoticed to Felicity that Oliver said love, for Sara. She doesn't know why but she feels a pang of jealousy; Oliver loved Shado, he loves Sara, was she just another woman for Oliver Queen to love.
"He pointed the gun at Sara, and I ran in front of her, willing for him to kill me, but he killed her instead." Oliver whispers but Felicity is lucky that she was able to make out what he said.
"That doesn't sound like you made a choice Oliver, your choice was for your life to be taken instead of theirs" she stands up unsure of whether to walk towards him or not.
"My dad arrived, took care of Ivo, Slade came and found Shad dead, he held her body and cried for hours, my dad decided we needed to keep what happened between him."
"And that's why he now thinks you are to blame for her death?" Felicity asks as she stands next to him.
"Yes. Everything that night happened so quickly that I was unsure of whether I had chosen Sara or myself" he laughs, but Felicity can see through it and knows he was conflicted and hurt.
"Oliver …"
"He thinks I chose Sara because she is my ex's sister, and he knew how much I loved Laurel."
Felicity remains quiet, Laurel, Sara, Shado, he sure did love a lot of women she thought to herself. "Oliver I don't know what happened, but I believe that you made the choice for your life over theirs. Ivo was the one who made the choice to kill Shado and Slade is now making the choice to seek revenge." Felicity places her hand on his arm. "It is not your fault."
Oliver just smiles and places a kiss on the top of her head.
Once they get dressed and head downstairs to have dinner with the whole family. It was more about showing a united front but also to ensure that everyone was ok and spent some time together. Moira had even invited Donna over; Felicity thought they finally had something in common now, having to go through thinking their children were dead.
They reached the dining room, and everyone sat around the long table and ate in silence, every so often making small talk with one another. Once dinner was over everyone sat in the living room in quiet with wine in their hands, no one knew what to say, and there was a small awkwardness. Until the front door opened, and everyone turned their heads towards clicking of heels.
"Ollie," a voice said. "Ollie," the voice said again.
Oliver, who was sitting next to Felicity, got up and walked towards the voice.
"Ollie thank God, I heard about the explosion," the brunette woman said embracing Oliver in a tight hug.
Felicity watched from the couch as Oliver encircled his arms around the brunette's shoulders and held her tightly. Felicity looked to Moira, who put on the first smile she had probably ever seen since moving meeting the woman.
"Laurel" Moira called as she walked towards the brunette and embraced her too.
So that was Laurel; Felicity thought, wow she was gorgeous, why Oliver had cheated on her he did not understand. What she could not understand was that if Oliver had cheated on her with her sister why she was here. Felicity didn't know if she would be ok with it and would even come to see if he were ok after the explosion. Come to think of it, she would probably have wished him dead in the explosion if he had cheated on her with her sister.
"If you excuse us, Laurel and I are going for a walk," Oliver says leading them outside.
Felicity remained seated and was upset that he had not introduced her and just left without saying anything to her. It was not until Robert put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a tight squeeze to reassure her that everything was ok that Felicity smiled sadly.
Felicity went and sat in the kitchen, her mother had gone to the hospital for the night with some men guarding her. So Felicity pulled out a tub of ice cream and decided that she wanted to forget about the day's events.
"Felicity," Oliver says as he and Laurel walk into the kitchen, their arms linked and smiles on their faces. Felicity straightens up and looks up at them. "This is Laurel, Laurel this is Felicity."
"Nice to meet you" Laurel holds her hand out. Felicity takes it and shakes "Likewise," she says.
Laurel and Oliver take a seat at the kitchen counter joining her; Oliver pours them a cup of coffee, and everyone sits in silence.
"Ollie do you remember when you, Tommy and I were in this exact position, drunk as hell" Laurel laughs out loud.
"I remember, I remember you banging pots and pans about making a racket" he grinned.
Felicity sits in silence and listens to the two share stories of their past, suddenly feeling isolated and hurt that Oliver had only introduced her as Felicity she wanted nothing more than to be in her room asleep. After 20 minutes of the pair talking about the past Felicity was fed up and wanted to get up and leave.
"Helena is back in town; you going to see her?" Laurel asked him causing Felicity to look up.
Oliver looked at Felicity briefly and then back to Laurel. "Erm no, I didn't know she was in town."
"Yes, she's back" Laurel raises her eyebrow.
"Well I am knackered, so I am going to go to bed, nice meeting you" Felicity quickly bins the empty tub and then leaves the room without looking back.
When she finally got to the bedroom, she quickly changed into her pyjamas and jumped into bed. The day had revealed a hell of a lot. Especially how many women Oliver Queen loved. Shado, Laurel, Sara, she could not get them out of the head. She was also hurt that he had not introduced her as his finance and probably giving his ex the idea that he was single.
Felicity heard the door open, she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. Oliver shuffled about getting ready for bed, just before he could jump in his phone rang. Oliver looked at the number and sighed, before answering he looked at Felicity and made sure she was asleep. "Helena," he says with a tone she is quite unsure of. "Fine, ok, fine, tomorrow morning" he hangs up the phone after that and jumps into bed, and spent the rest of the night lost in his thoughts.
In the morning Felicity had woken up early and gotten dressed; a part of her wanted to be awake for when Oliver left to meet Helena. She had a sixth sense about things or maybe it was an experienced. Felicity had a funny feeling that Oliver would lie about meeting Helena, so she wanted to be awake for when he lied to her face.
"Morning," Felicity said as Oliver walked out of the shower putting on a blue t-shirt on.
"Hey," Oliver smiles as he goes to find some pants to wear.
"Want to grab breakfast" Felicity tested him while she bit the inside of her cheek.
"I can't, going to check out a lead on Slade and need to go to QC" Oliver explains kissing her on the forehead and leaving the bedroom with her sitting at her dresser.
Felicity felt tears about to spill; he had lied blank to her face. She didn't even know why she cared, it wasn't as they were together, and their entire relationship was a lie. She hated that she had fallen for him, hated that it hurt that he had been in love with so many women and had lied to her face about meeting another woman. Felicity believed she had loved with one man, Cooper, but she had soon learnt what kind of man he really was and she knew she had never really loved him. Here she was a woman who had never experienced love before, had hardly been with anyone, especially after her brother got ill. When Roy had gotten ill, she had spent a lot of time working, paying bills, being at the hospital and had not had enough time to be with someone.
But here she was falling for Oliver Queen. Felicity closed her eyes and refused to cry for him. She made a decision there and then that she needed to be strong, for her family, she needed to protect them, and that meant having to lie about being with Oliver. So that was what she was going to do; Felicity gazed out of the window. She was no longer Felicity Smoak. She was Felicity Queen, and she needed to play a part. She needed to push her feelings aside for him; clearly his head was in other places. Felicity then walked to her walk-in-closet that she shared with Oliver and picked out an orange dress that had cut out at the back. She put her hair up in her usual tight ponytail; she applied some makeup, slipped on her glasses and put on a pair of earrings and gold heels.
Felicity went downstairs and found Moira sitting in the living room with her legs tucked underneath her reading reports. Felicity remembered what it was like to go to work, do something, since coming back from Russia she had spent her whole time indoors not doing much. She wished she could go back to work, preoccupy her time, and do something to keep busy rather than sit around the house all day.
"Good morning," Moira says not looking up from her reports.
"Good morning," Felicity replies as she takes a seat on one of the other sofas away from her.
"You missed breakfast…"
"I'm not hungry" she answered quickly, yes she did not come down to eat because she was busy lost in her head about the whole situation with Oliver.
"Oliver is out this morning on business; any plans today?" The older woman asked.
"No, unfortunately not" Felicity crossed her legs and pouted her lips in boredom.
"Well, when we solve the Slade situation you can go to work."
"Boy can I not wait to get out of this house, sorry … there's nothing wrong with this house; it's a lovely house … just being cooped up all day and …"
"Stop talking," Moira says harshly.
"Right," Felicity gets up and heads out. She takes her laptop and sits on the kitchen counter and does one thing she is good at hacking. She hacked into mainframes and street cameras, wanting to help Oliver find something on the whereabouts of Slade.
A few hours later Oliver walked through the door and smiled when he saw Felicity in her element. She had her headphones in and was typing furiously on her laptop.
"Hi," he says standing in front of her to grab her attention. Felicity looks up and takes her headphones off and looks up at him with an unreadable expression on her face. "How has your day been?" he asked a little uneasy from the look on her face.
"Boring, I want to go to work, leave this house do something" she rolls her eyes and looks back at her computer screen.
"As soon as we find Slade everything will go back to normal" he tries to explain.
"And what is exactly normal, for us" she holds her hands up and shrugs.
"Are you alright?" he asks.
"Fine, how was your day" she snaps at him, Oliver is shocked and is unsure why she is angry.
"Fine, I spoke to some associates, feeling a little better about finding Slade," he tells her with a smile on his face.
"Yeah? You do seem more relaxed" she laughed, her lips raised in a smile and then dropped immediately.
"Yes, I am, are you sure you're alright?"
"You always ask me not to lie to you, so please, don't lie to me" Felicity stands up and Oliver is more confused than ever.
"What are you talking about?"
"Helena. You sure do seem more relaxed, I don't care, you can go fuck whoever you want but do not lie to my face. I am not an idiot, the opposite actually I am a genius a very high IQ and …"
"Felicity, Helena, that's not …"
"Like I said do what you want, fuck who you want, you can use our room, I mean it's your room, just put a sock on it and …" Felicity stops talking when she spots Moira listening in on their conversation with a smile on her face. Felicity pushes past Oliver and leaves the two Queens standing in the kitchen.
"Well you know I don't like her but Helena seriously?" Moira yells at her son.
"Mum I never slept with her, I'm not back with her, she was the associate, since learning Slade is not dead she is still hell bent on finding him and killing him because Slade killed her finance." Oliver explains rubbing his face with his hands as he is frustrated that Felicity thinks he is cheating on him.
Oliver walks into his bedroom to find Felicity painting her nails with the same pout on her face from earlier. If he weren't upset that she thought he was cheating on her, her expression would make him laugh. "I'm not cheating on you" he crosses his hands across his chest and waits for her to look up at him. "Felicity" he squints at her but she continues to paint her nails. "Fel-ic-it" he watched as she flinched slightly and he knew the way he just said her name had an effect on her. "Fel-ic-ty" he does it again and smirks when he notices her bite her lip. Oliver walks to her and kneels down in front of her. "I'm not cheating on you" he repeats. "Helena was the associate, she is looking for Slade, let's just say she wants her revenge, nothing more."
"So you and her, you were never together?" she mutters under her breath.
Oliver exhales and looks away. "I'll take that as a yes" Felicity chuckled and then continued with her nails.
"A long time ago, we dated."
"You love her too" she immediately regrets how spiteful she sounded.
"No" Oliver shakes his head, "is that what this is about?" he asks her.
"No, why not tell me you were going to meet her than lie."
"I didn't lie I just never said who my associate was" Oliver turns her shoulders, so she is looking at him. "Nothing happened" he whispers. "Nothing happened, nor will it happen" he places his hand on her knee and draws circles on them.
"Ok," she pushed past him and went to her closet so she can pick a new outfit to wear. There was nothing else to do so she might as well change her outfit.
"Felicity, please tell me what is wrong?"
"What's wrong, what's wrong is that I am married to a mobster who has enemies who shot at me, who threatened my family who tried to kill with a freaking missile." Felicity yells as she flicks through her dresses on the hangers. "What's wrong is that I was fucking kidnapped and turned into a prostitute and was plated on a plate to you" she shook her head at her statement but knew that he knew what she meant.
"Felicity."
"What's wrong is that we are married, we don't know each other and if things had not happened the way they did you would never have been with me."
Oliver tried to touch her arm so she would stop flicking through her clothes and face him, but she pulled away. "Face it, you would never have even blinked in my direction."
"That's not true."
"Yes it is, while you were away I googled the women you have been with, beautiful leggy models," She tried to push past so she could get out of the closet, but he stood in front of her with an unreadable expression. "Can you please get out of my way" when he wouldn't move she huffed in annoyance. "I googled Shado and Sara and Helena and all the other women you have been with gorgeous women." Felicity closed her eyes and tried not to cry, the last thing she wanted was to cry in front of him.
"Felicity, you …"
"Don't, don't try and pity me or compliment me to make me feel better" she tried to push past him again but he steadied her.
"Felicity, I am with you, yes I have been with a lot of women but it is all in the past, please do not judge me on that …"
"Don't please, I am not judging but how am I to compete with all the women you have been with and with all the women that you love." Oliver pulls back and closes his eyes remembering that he told her the story of three women that he loved.
"Felicity …" he says again but she interrupts him once more.
"I can't compete with that, because I'm just Felicity, Felicity who likes to sit behind a computer, Felicity who likes mint chocolate chip ice cream, Netflix, sitting in her pyjamas all day. Felicity, who has never been in love before, plain, old, boring, simple Felicity" she wipes her eyes clear of the tears and then walks out leaving Oliver standing there with his eyes closed.