Nobody highlights that she relinquished Oliver's trust fund the moment he was back. That she kept everything in his name even after he was declared dead. That she didn't take any of his money but more than doubled it in the last five years.
No. Felicity is the reason he spent five years being betrayed, beaten and tortured. The reason he had to learn how to kill. As far as Oliver and Diggle as well as the rest of the Queen family – Walter included – are concerned, Felicity is the antichrist. Everything bad that happens to them can be traced back to her. Somehow. Although Walter is a little more dubious about the latter, thankfully, in the end it doesn't help. But at least he doesn't end up kidnapped – whoever he'd gone to for help had clearly not been as proficient as Felicity was at uncovering two-year-old tracks and he'd had little reason to doubt his wife's explanations.
In all her life, not even after Cooper's death, has she felt this alone. Like there's no one else in the world who trusted her – believed in her. There probably wasn't. Donna – her mother – was still in the dark. About everything. These were things she didn't want to share with her. Her mother would never understand why Felicity didn't just leave.
Her husband, the man who sent her here, could never see her again. Not unless she died.
And Felicity, who had spent twenty years planning and looking forward to her own suicide, because of the certainty it would reunite them, a promise the Monitor gave her – well, she wasn't far off in this world either.
But she wanted this world to be better. For him. To him.
She'd made it for two decades in the other world; persisting for just a little longer – well, she'd done harder things. Not much harder, because there'd always been Mia before, there had been the memory of how much love there had been between them, but still, Felicity was strong. Strong enough to not give in. Not yet.
Oliver still ends up in her backseat when Moira shoots him – only this time it's not a sign of trust.
"Spousal privilege," he tells her, and she doesn't tell him that it's something Felicity would have to invoke – that she can't be made to talk, but very well can choose to. His life is more important – she doesn't ask and he's furious with her for knowing his lair is at the Foundry, for knowing the code, when he hadn't told her. Felicity upgrades their system still, at her own cost, making sure to make it as user-friendly as she possibly can.
Oliver catches her – once – watching him on the salmon ladder. The next day her screens are facing a wall full of holes, made by his custom-built arrows, the salmon ladder behind her and out of view. It's a clear message; he's good at this passive aggressive thing. Another new thing she'd learnt about her husband she'd never wanted to know.
Oliver… still hates her. When Helena presses her for her father's safety house and she reveals it – it's not anger at himself, but at her; for folding. For researching it. Even under threat of being shot. It's the first time Diggle intervenes, helping her get free and checking on her when Oliver won't – just leaving.
She's still shaking by the time she's home, not sure how to cope with the knowledge that to her husband, to Oliver, her death is just an afterthought. A passing inconvenience. Hell, maybe even a joyful occasion.
It's the first time she calls in sick to work in five years.
Felicity keeps going. Unidac is… difficult. The earthquake machines needed refinement but were largely already conceptualised. Intervening in the sale wouldn't have helped. Closing one lab just would make sure a different lab would work on it. The only solution was finding the second machine in the underground.
She did as she was told by Oliver – no ridiculous excuses this time. No surprised laughter. No smiles. No watching over his missions or talking to him. No extraneous chatter.
Oliver made it very clear what he considered her to be - expendable. Still, between working at Queen Consolidated and her unpredictable hours, Oliver's need to show her his every conquest and how much he hated her and her after-work-hours on personal projects, on Arrow projects with and without him? Felicity was in a constant state of exhaustion. Days where she isn't sure she can walk in a straight line anymore. Days where caffeine is the only thing keeping her semi-functional.
Oliver still didn't listen; not when she tried to tell him about there being a redundancy with the machines. Not about Malcolm being the black archer. Not about… anything, really. No matter how many times she proved to be right. He never asked her how she knew; just assumed she had her hand in as many criminal pies as possible. Accordingly, she supposedly had no idea of his list or his book. He only asked her for help (commanded her, to be precise) when he needed locations, when he needed help beyond what ARGUS had trained him for.
On the nights before the Undertaking, Felicity walked and walked and walked along the underground, trying to find the machines. It was on the last night that she finally found the one that needed to be disabled – the one Lance had disabled last time; it hadn't been there the night before. This time Oliver sent Lance on his way with the blueprint and her linked in to help while she was on foot, running, trying to find the second one.
Only one impact, one tiny shock had been set off before she managed to disable the second machine. As the origin point of the earthquake, Felicity had felt the build-up to the first tremor and injuries from a few fallen rocks. A couple of bruises and cuts, nothing more.
Still Oliver found opportunity to criticise her for not being there, for leaving Lance with the instructions when computers were her area of expertise – disregarding that she'd walked him through it over the phone nonetheless, despite not visibly being within the Arrow cave. He didn't ask where she was. He never did. Not anymore.
Assumptions, always. Built on a truly terrible precedent he'd built up in his head. As far as he was concerned, she was ultimately responsible for Shado's and Sara's death. For Yao Fei. Hell, maybe he even thought her to be the third party who had hired Fyers. Behind Waller. Behind everything and everyone.
Oliver never said. Never asked. Never questioned her. Just assumed he already knew all the answers. Didn't listen when she tried to explain.
Tommy lived. Laurel lived and didn't drown herself in pills and alcohol, as another bonus.
Ten people died in the tiny tremor she hadn't been able to stop. And, at some point, she'd started blaming herself for that, too. Moira was still behind bars. Isa-bitch was entering, stage left, as was Blood – but this time around Oliver had not left for Lian Yu, at least.
Felicity was spending the precious money she'd accumulated buying up Queen Consolidated shares cheaply, trying to further pre-empt Stellmoor's invasion. Oliver did take over as CEO. Isabel had enough shares to be named as his advisor – not CEO, not enough for that – but still, far too close. Felicity remained in the IT department – last time as his PA had been a sign of trust, a need for less masks in his life, less complications. He didn't have that this time – didn't want her that close. But she had still been commandeered to join them in Russia. Even warned about Isabel by both her and Moira, Oliver still took her to bed; he'd half-taken the woman against Felicity's hotel door – only the banging noise when he'd pressed Isa-bitch hard against it, had made her open it to look out and Oliver apologise, patently fake, as mistaking it for the wrong door.
A lie, they both knew.
Still, Felicity just nodded and went back inside. Refusing to sign the annulment papers he slipped through for her the next morning. At least this time Felicity managed to save herself from the Count; years of looking after herself and Mia, of being very, very aware of the potential danger and her vulnerability given Oliver's lack of involvement in her life, she'd had a gun on her. So, when the Count tried to get her to phone Oliver – to unlock her phone – he'd been distracted. Just for a moment. But long enough to shoot him in the shoulder.
Anatoly had taught her how to aim for non-lethal points on the body.
Well… he'd taught her how to kill with one shot. By virtue of avoiding all those areas he'd taught her were instant death or slow, agonising death, Felicity knew where to aim to not kill, at least. Her aim was still not great, especially under pressure, (she'd been aiming for his lower arm) but good enough.
It only furthered what Oliver suspected, naturally, when he found out from the filed Police reports and as the CEO of the company where the 'incident' had taken place. Clear self-defence, Quentin had concurred. Oliver, on the other hand, suspected she'd had a hand in targeting Diggle. In changing the formula. And that the Count's death was due to eliminating the competition or a fight between business partners.
Everything with Blood – again, her warning had only served to make Oliver call Blood a friend that much earlier and be that much closer to this time – Isabel and Slade was coming to a head. Quickly, too. She'd not managed to protect Roy either and the boy was once again drugged.
Things were spiralling fast – and then things got simultaneously better and worse.
Because Barry came by. Not this world's Barry – but the one from hers. Older. More weathered. More worn. More content and settled in himself.
Only he didn't come alone.
Mia came with him. Her beautiful, perfect, clever, twenty-five-year-old daughter – a daughter who needed to hide out for a week or two, away from a speedster who'd sussed out time travel but not sideways travel. And Oliver – her Oliver, Spectre Oliver – was looking out for her, always, and he'd made it clear that the Felicity here was the one who had memories of all the time spent raising Mia and that she could use this, too.
It was a sparkle of light in her life. A momentary reprieve and happiness.
Mia. Her daughter. Their daughter.
For the first time in five years, Felicity took a two-week-holiday. Forced it through. Threatened to report it if they didn't let her.
Naturally, given how everything was converging, given how pushy she'd been, this meant Oliver was suspicious.
For days, they stayed home, her and Mia. Rather reminiscent of their years in hers and Oliver's house, of not being allowed to school. But this time it's to bond as adults.
She can't help but feel like she failed when she finds out that her daughter – the little girl she raised and watched over, the one she remained for – had died. That the girl with her now held her memories but had grown up a socialite. This girl didn't have that small burn scar by her thumb from trying to make her mother pancakes at age five when Felicity was sick in bed with the flu. Didn't have the small scar on her calf from jumping Nyssa aged seven and a half and slicing her leg on one of the blades when she jumped on her back. This girl had all the memories – but Mia, her Mia, her beautiful, perfect child, had died. Felicity had raised her daughter and, somehow, she'd come and grown into the same self-sacrificial loner mindset her father had. And had died for it.
She really had failed. More than she ever thought was possible.
Still, Mia remembers her, remembers her as her mother and despite them both looking the same age, they bond easily enough – eating ice cream and watching movies. Chatting for hours on end.
Only at some point her daughter pushes – asks to see Starling City. They go to the zoo and pay the fee to stand on top of tall buildings and look over the city, pointing out to each other ways in which the city had – and might still – change. They coo at pandas, her daughter unusually open and soft in ways she hadn't been since she found out her mother remained a cyber-vigilante even while in hiding.
It's a week and a bit of restoration for Felicity – her faith, her hope, her laughter and love. Mia is every inch her father's daughter – the way she acts and what she believes, Oliver written into her every action and movement. The only things she gets from Felicity really are her inability to cook and the sheer utter stubbornness even Oliver hadn't been able to top. Although, to be fair, that could be a combination of them both amplified in their child.
Mia reminds her of her husband. Of their love. Their forever.
She can't quite say she regrets being here, because this Felicity would have died. Tommy would have died. The Dollmaker would have killed more women – she is helping. Saving people. It's just hard to remember that some days – but Mia helps just by being there.
Still, Felicity wasn't really surprised to find Oliver and Diggle turning up when she and Mia were having lunch at Big Belly Burger. It was a mistake, really, going to this one but there's so many happy memories, so many of which she'd shared with her daughter over the years, there was no way she could not go there at least once.
"Mia," Felicity spoke, eyes fastened on two people she knew very well walking up to the entrance - but they're still far enough her daughter won't hear a thing. "Please go to the bathroom for five minutes. I need to have a chat with your dad."
"Wow, he looks so young," Mia said, eyes wide, as she looked at the younger version of her dad. Felicity found herself smiling softly, tearing her eyes away from the men for a moment, but it fades quickly at her daughter's next question. "What's he so angry about?"
"Don't know, sweetheart. But I'll find out. Please."
"Alright, Mum. But I want a fresh milkshake when I come back," she blackmailed, and Felicity's lips curved up naturally, easily, the way they hadn't done in years.
"Done," she promised easily, and Mia sighed but obediently stood up.
"You know I'm an adult now, right?" she still asked, and Felicity grinned, popping a fry into her mouth.
"Yep," she agreed, "but this is between him and me."
Mia rolled her eyes but left. "Your clothes better still be on when I come back, Mom. And I don't want to see any of your clothes or hair dishevelled," her daughter says mock-sternly, mouth twisted into a moue of disgust, pointing her finger firmly at her and Felicity shakes her head, laughing.
"Is that what you think we'd do when you're not watching?"
Mia softens, eyeing her. "I grew up watching the way you looked when you talked about him. But I didn't really understand until I saw him and the way he looked when he talked about you."
Felicity's own smile brightens, knowing just what her daughter is talking about. The decades have a way of dulling the pain – a different pain to the one the man entering Big Belly Burger elicits in her. But she remembers the love written into every line of Oliver's face. The emotions bared enough that her mother had seen it. Curtis had seen it. The media had. The man who was her always. He'd once promised her that no matter how she changed or how he did, whatever they became, that she would always be his forever, his one true love.
It's a little harder to have faith in that in this particular universe. Mia just shakes her head, amused, as she walks away.
Felicity's smile drops the moment she left. Not a lot of time to sort this.
"Mr. Queen," she called out to him as he stepped up to their table, eyeing the empty seat in front of her. "Mr. Diggle," she greeted his bodyguard. Two years of helping them, saving them, and still on a last-name-basis. To be fair, they probably only knew half the stuff she'd done to help them. If that.
"Ms. Smoak." Another slight, always, but a small one. Not Mrs. Ms.
Her husband's wedding ring remained on the silver chain around her neck – a souvenir she'd offered back and which he'd dropped into the bin, right in front of her. Felicity had retrieved it the moment he left, threading it back through her necklace and never mentioned it again – or shown him again.
"Look," she starts but he cuts her off, as he so often does. Now, when she babbles, he looks frustrated and annoyed – cutting her off and insulting her for her rambles.
"Why are you taking a holiday now?" He asks her like there's some evil masterplan.
"I've not taken a holiday in six years," she tells him. She'd tried – often. But her holidays had supposedly conflicted, and she'd been told to take it other times but none of which ever worked for her employer. Then she'd not receive pay out for them either. God, Felicity was tired of this kind of bullying, this abuse she was constantly exposed to. She thought about leaving so often. About making some lawyer's day by giving them all the evidence of how they'd gone against employment legislation. But she hadn't. Just a little longer – always. Just until she could get rid of Isa-bitch. Until that woman tried to make a grab for shares, for control.
"So? Did you think I have?"
When you left me on the island, is the unspoken addendum to that sentence.
Time is running out, before Mia returns. Felicity had spent twenty years telling her daughter about how much her father had loved them. So much so that he sacrificed himself to save them, save the multiverse. But every day she'd told her.
She didn't want Mia to ever see her father like this. To see him treat his wife – her mother – like this. Or to have him extend that treatment to her.
"Look," she starts again, and this time she doesn't let him cut her off, her hand on his arresting him. It's the first contact she'd initiated since his return and he stares at her hand on his like it's an alien appendage, like he doesn't know what to do, what he should do.
"I don't care how you treat me, how you talk to me. I can handle it." He frowns, unsure, like he isn't certain what she means or how to take it. As if he didn't know exactly how he treated her. "But not to Mia. If you want to meet her, you can. But no glaring, no being harsh, no being anything other than a polite, well-mannered gentleman I know you can be. Whatever you want to say, you can tell me after she's gone. Not in front of her," she manages to hiss out just before Mia re-joins them.
"Mr. Diggle," Felicity starts, warm smile on her lips as if this was her Dig, John and not 'Mr. Diggle. "Please meet Mia Smoak. Mia, this is Mr. Queen's bodyguard, John Diggle. Mr. Queen, this is Mia Smoak. Mia, please meet the CEO of Queen Consolidated, my boss, Oliver Queen."
There's a charming smile on his lips as he leans over to kiss Mia's hand and Felicity flinches – one thing she hadn't anticipated, hadn't even considered. Because how could he possibly know that was his daughter? Of course, he'd think it would upset her if he flirted with her – and he was right, it would. Both of them. Just not for the reason he thought.
Eyes wide but acting quickly, before playboy Queen could come to the fore, Felicity pulled Mia desperately up, grabbing both her hands.
"I just remembered I promised you another milkshake. Come on, let's grab that now."
"Really?" Her daughter asks, rolling her eyes but obligingly following her to the counter while Felicity turns back, mouthing 'off-limits', to the man. He's smirking and she's certain, just like all the other times, he will only see it as a challenge.
"Sorry, Mia," she tells her daughter as they're queuing. Mia shrugs.
"Not your fault, Mum," she says easily. Of course, she'd picked up on what her father was trying to do.
"It's weird," Felicity complained, and Mia winced.
"Yeah, it really is. He's so… immature."
Felicity smiled softly at her daughter as she ordered, tucking on of the strands of her curly hair behind her ear carefully.
"I did tell you he took a long time to come around." She doesn't reiterate that he felt something for her from the beginning – because he had, even this version. He wouldn't have proposed marriage to goth-Felicity otherwise.
But that was vastly different to how he felt now, how he acted around her. Her best hope was to spend what remained of her two weeks with Mia. To have fun, while she could and avoid any more situations where they met.
Felicity didn't doubt the strength of her love between her and her other-universe husband. But she didn't want Mia to doubt it either – and she might, if she saw this Oliver with her.
"Shall we get out here?" Mia asks and Felicity's shoulders drop in relief.
"You're perfect," she tells her daughter instead and Mia laughs easily. God, she'd missed her.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Queen. Mr. Diggle," her daughter offers politely with a smile Felicity is certain was learned by the socialite version of her because she's never seen her daughter smile like that.
"Please, Oliver for you," he says with a wink and Mia shudders in genuine disgust, pulling away.
"Yeah-No. Bye," sending a scared look to Felicity who snorts.
"What did you tell her?" Oliver asks, voice and eyes hard the moment she's out the door.
"Nothing," Felicity retorts, just as icily. "And we're going to keep it that way."
Except her daughter is bright. Skilled with people, arrows and languages – her father's influence – and genius-level intellect – her part in her daughter's genetics. Which also means she knows something's awry when Felicity has no friends to introduce. No pictures up. When she keeps getting calls for work emergencies she refuses to come in for. When people look at her funny, despite her not being EA or PA to Oliver. The fact that she's not his EA.
But Mia just looks at her – and reads her. Because they spent nearly twenty years together, day in and day out. There's not a thing her daughter cannot read from Felicity's face and demeanour. So, they avoid the outside and spend days cuddled up on the couch, watching Doctor Who or Princess Bride. Joking about future developments and reminiscing.
It's a balm to her wounded soul.
For a time.
Because just when their time is nearly up, twelve days after she arrives, Felicity and Mia are taken – by Slade Wilson on mirakuru.
"I only wanted you – the wife," Slade tells her, and Mia looks at her, surprised. "But we can't have witnesses."
Felicity's tongue is numb for a moment. She had no weapons strapped to her – not at home. Even Mia had just been lounging with her, everything securely locked away. Her gun is in her bedside drawer. Her daughter might still have a knife squirrelled away somewhere – but that won't do much against a trained soldier on mirakuru.
She'd been planning for a moment like this since Oliver's return – since he first met her, to be fair. But especially since Helena forced her father's location out of Felicity. Because she'd known that everyone else's life was valued above hers by Oliver.
There was a will waiting with her lawyer. Detailed instructions which would be sent out electronically if Felicity missed her weekly check-in and the reminder three days after. If both were missed, Oliver and Dig would receive detailed instructions on how to use the computer programs she created, everything funds-wise and for the shares would be changed to be in Oliver's name and a copy of signed annulment papers would be couriered to him, with her handing everything over to him. Everything she was entitled to and everything she owned. Along with a timeline for what she knew was coming with as many clear-cut hints as she could think of.
And as soon as Barry had arrived, she'd acquired one of the safe houses he knew about – one which she knew he'd check if anything happened to her. Just in case. Because she wasn't sure if Slade would be after her.
But… she hadn't expected her daughter to be in the crosshairs. Mia knew the safehouses, knew which one she'd purchased for her to hide away in if things got dicey. But Felicity honestly hadn't expected it to. Not yet. Not now.
"I thought you were after the ones Oliver cares about," she told Slade Wilson, voice surprisingly placid as she eyed her daughter kneeling next to her. Mia knew the man was on mirakuru, knew to only fight if things got dire, if there was no other choice, no chance of survival.
"Isn't that Mr. Queen to you, Mrs. Queen?"
"You're right," she acknowledges with a nod, "but my question still stands, Mr. Wilson."
"I am. That's why I will give him the choice."
"There is no choice to make," she tells him, firmly. "He has no connection to her, and she has none with him. Let her go and you can have me."
"You don't really get a say, here, Mrs. Queen."
The camera flares to life at the press of a button
"Your choice, Oliver?" Wilson asks and the phone is put on speaker. The camera appears to be transmitting. Internet, Felicity wonders, curiously.
"What- Slade. Let them go." The voice is hard growl but that only delights Slade further. The man with and without Mirakuru are surprisingly different in so many ways – similar in some, but at the moment the madness is shining through.
Felicity looks straight into the camera and then sideways at Mia. Nodding in her daughter's direction. Not caring how obvious it is. Choosing Mia is the right thing to do. Always.
"Either I kill both of them in front of you or you make a choice."
She can hear Oliver grit his teeth and finally a breath hisses out.
"Felicity," he hisses out between gritted teeth and she can feel herself blanch.
No.
He was supposed to pick Mia. She had told him to pick Mia.
Her body moves before she can think – before Slade, even on mirakuru, moves, putting herself between her daughter and the gun, feet still bound, arms behind her, slumped over her daughter's fragile body, the pain of the bullet inside her an agonising fire burning inside of her.
"Still," she whispers to her daughter and Mia obediently goes silent. Quiet. The way she'd taught her when she was young – very young. Just in case. To hide her. To protect her.
For the first time, even though it makes no sense because he had no way of knowing – Felicity resents Oliver.
He had a choice.
And he just made the wrong one.
Their daughter – he picked her over Mia. That was never supposed to happen. She told him the right choice and he still didn't listen. He never listened.
"Remember," she whispers in her ear. "You are safe. You are loved. And you are wise." The same thing she told her daughter every night for two decades when she tucked her into bed. "Now, run," Felicity screams at her daughter, pushing her away when Slade steps closer, hauling herself upright and back.
And her daughter does as she taught her to since she was very small. When Felicity is there and tells her to be still and then tells her now – she runs. Far and fast.
Mia is a fighter now. A vigilante. But this is something she learned from when she was too young to question it. Too young to understand what it might mean. And it's just as engrained now – her daughter runs. Believes her mother is coming. Following.
Felicity knows she won't be.
She had promised to follow. Always.
But it was a lie then, and it is a lie now.
Even bound, she uses every trick she knows. Blood and Isabel are still out there – but, for now, Mia is alive and going to the safehouse where Barry will pick her up in a few days. Whatever she did wrong, soon it will be over. Soon Felicity will be back with Spectre. With the man she loves. The man who loves her.
Mia hesitates when the second shot enters her gut, but Felicity is using her body to shield, is fighting as well as she can, and she can hear her call out, call back.
"RUN!" She shouts and this time her daughter doesn't look back again, just keeps running. Good.
Mia is well out of camera view by now. Felicity is bleeding – but she isn't dead yet.
"Well, that was a surprise. I didn't expect so much of a fight from you – I didn't think he'd deign to train you."
"Oh, he hasn't. You judged him right," Felicity gasps out, surprised Slade has not ended up with a headshot. But Slade seems content with Mia running, far more interested in making conversation with her.
"I recognise that move," he objects.
"I have had other teachers," Felicity tells him, struggling upright.
"I was going to let him just find your dead body," Slade tells her conversationally, kneeling down next to her, watching dispassionately. "But then the other girl just wouldn't leave and I thought he might enjoy the trip down memory lane. I have to confess, though, I expected him to pick anyone but you, no matter who the other person was."
Felicity gives a gasping laugh.
"So did I," she confesses. "But the moment I told him to pick the other girl, I should have known he'd do the contrary."
"Why are you sticking with him?" Slade asks. "He's a killer. A murderer. He's responsible for Shado's death."
Felicity shakes her head.
"No. That one was Dr. Ivo, and you know it."
In the blink of an eye, Slade is throttling her, madness back in his eyes.
"Don't speak of things you know nothing of," he warns her, voice a deep growl but finally releases her when all she can do is wriggle in his grasp. Felicity gasps for air when he releases her.
"Did he tell you he tried to take their place?" She asks – prods – instead, despite knowing about Mirakuru and hallucinations, she still tries to reason with the man. "Asked for it to be him instead of them? Did he tell you that he never chose? Ivo gave him sixty seconds. When the time was up and it looked like the first one to be shot would be Sara, he jumped in front of her to take the bullet for her. He never expected him to shoot Shado instead. Oliver never chose."
Slade is eyeing her with – still – a lot of madness, but now there is also curiosity.
"How do you know that?"
Felicity shrugs. Her body is starting to feel tired. Cold.
A part of her thinks she should struggle. Move.
But Mia is safe.
And she's been waiting for this – wanting this – for so long. She's so, so tired. Of this life. These people here. The loneliness.
"The same way I know everything else," she tells him calmly. The pain is starting to fade, too. It's kind of nice.
She hopes her husband's last moments were like this. That he, too, felt at peace. Slowly, and for the first time in years not due to Mia, her lips turn up in a soft smile as she looks up at the stars.
Soon. Soon she'll see him again. Spectre. Her beautiful, wonderful husband.
"You're not fighting anymore," Slade notes observantly, half-questioningly.
"You're on mirakuru. I'm tied up. What could I possibly do?"
"Didn't stop you before."
"Before there was something worth fighting for," she tells him quietly, never taking her eyes off the sky. When he unties her, she doesn't try to fight – there's no fight left in her. No energy. Tiredly, slowly, her hand reaches for the ring still on her neck, pulling it out so she can wrap her hand around it for comfort.
"You wear his ring, still," he looks more intrigued now, leaning forward, assessing her wounds, her movements, eyeing her with detached amusement, like she doesn't even register as a person to him anymore.
"Always," she tells him quietly, a promise he doesn't understand. Slade – the man who called her husband 'kid'. Who taught him how to fight. How to survive. Who gave up escaping by plane because her husband ran off to get Yao Fei. Who ran after him through the bombs and got burned and injured, nearly dying.
"He chose them," she says quietly, a tear running down her face, as she holds onto the ring. "I said they're the colour of his eyes. He said they're like me. Like the sky. The ocean. Like freedom," she tells her husband's once-friend.
"You love him," he notes, surprised, eyes wide. "How did I not see this before?"
"Because he doesn't want me to," Felicity says quietly but Slade moves, putting pressure on her wound and Felicity really should be feeling something. Her body folds and gasps under the pressure – too much – but she doesn't feel anything.
"He hates you. He abuses you. Insults you. There's not a person on this earth he loathes more than he does you" he tells her, still trying to save her for whatever reason makes sense in his mirakuru-addled mind. "Spent ages telling me how you tricked him. How Sara died because of you. His father died because of you. Didn't stop just because he saw Sara again."
"I figured," Felicity tells him, breathing harder now, eyes wide. "Not like he's hiding it." Her heart is not beating fast in fright anymore. It's slowing down. Like going to sleep. Just slower and slower. More time between each beat, each pump of blood. Each gasp for air. Each last fight for survival from her body.
"Is that what happened?" Slade asks – the first one since she came here. The first one in six and a half years.
"No. Tried to save him. Emiko. Ninth- Malcolm. The bomb planted. Tried to help. Too late. Didn't know when. Or where. Just knew- storm. And that he'd be back in- in five years."
"The family?"
Felicity manages a nod. "Tried- to help. More money. More shares. No Isa-bitch."
Slade laughs at her nickname, and she manages a tired curl up of her lips.
"Want'd them safe. Thea. Moira. Too much- guilt. Pain." Felicity breathes out. Her breath is no longer steaming in the air. "Saved Tommy. Stopped the second machine." Triumphant. "Saved Mia."
"Who is Mia?"
A chocked gasp, half-laugh. "My… everything."
"No- to Oliver. Who is she?"
"Nothing," she tells him.
"You know I'll just find her again."
Felicity laughs.
"Never," she tells him, eyes blinking slower and slower. Barry will take her home. He'd never find her in a different universe.
"Gut wounds take the longest," he informs her almost conversationally. "Still, surprised you're holding on. Stronger than I thought you'd be. And that you'd think you could hide her somewhere I couldn't find her."
Felicity smiles at him.
Slade Wilson.
Friend of Oliver. Mentor. He'd helped him. Later on. He never noticed her pick up the gun he'd long since dropped. Too occupied with her stories, with the ring she'd picked up with her left hand, never noticing her right hand. Too concerned with what she tells him.
"Thea and Moira next?" she asks, and he nods, madness back in his eyes.
"I wonder who he'll choose," Slade asks ponderously and Felicity snorts. He eyes her. "You think you know?"
"He won't have to," she tells him. "A mother will always choose her child."
And the choice will never come. Because she will always choose her child, too.
A gunshot. This time from her.
Slade Wilson drops like a marionette with its strings cut.
Good.
She's done.
The Felicity of this world is done. Only, she never wants to be the cause of pain for him. And these are her last moments on this Earth, she can be merciful. She doesn't want him to agonise over her. Never that. She wants this Oliver to be better. Maybe he'll find his happiness with Laurel. McKenna. Or someone else, someone new, here.
"No regrets," she tells the camera, hoping Oliver will understand even as her hands fall, weighing too heavily, dropping. "Love you. Always. Oliver."
She gasps and her body tries to arch up, to take in – force in – more oxygen, but it won't comply. Won't yield. Muscles seize. Her heart stops. Her eyes remain wide open and then everything cuts, all at once, and instead of the slow fading, Felicity dies between one blink of her eyes and the next.
Author's Notes:
Sorry guys, Mia is just a story device here and doesn't get as much screen time as she should. Did anyone else get as squicked as I did when I made Oliver flirt, however lightly, with her? Yeah, me too. *shudder* I seriously thought about taking it out, but considering how much he's rubbed all his relations in her face, the playboy facade he's been using... yeah. Someone close to her, close enough to upset her if he flirted with her? How could he not take that opportunity. Still. Squick. Sorry about that. I kept it as loose and light as I could, but yeah... Don't worry, that's all there was about that. No more.
Did you like the safe,loved and wise bit? Got that from Mentalist. Made me coo - so I had to include that.
Please review - and guys, if you have nothing positive to say, why are you still reading this? No one's forcing you. It was cathartic for me, and I wanted to share, but getting so many comments with nothing but negative things to say, it's a bit hard. So would appreciate if you could at least include something you like. Or stop reading. If you don't enjoy it, don't waste your time.
Thanks all the positive, encouraging reviewers, the ones just holding out to see where this will go and how Oliver will ever manage to redeem himself. If he does. We all know he'll try.
