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Someone was behind her, and she didn’t know who.
They had been moving for quite some time now, her legs screaming at her to slow down, to stop, to rest, while her heart beat in her ears and her mind ran as fast as it could. The only clear thought she could catch was the fear of what was behind her, and the desire to get away from the threat, as far away as possible.
The weight in her arms was comforting but also fed into her fear even more, making her legs move faster, her heart pump stronger, her lungs work harder.
Oliver was right next to her, guiding her around corners and over fallen debris, through tight gaps between two buildings and dark corridors. They never stopped, never even slowed down or turned around, and the only sound aside from her own heavy breathing were the whimpers of their son in her arms, echoing through space every few seconds. He was scared. He didn’t know what was going on, why his parents were running, why his mother held him just a bit too tight, why his father constantly barked out directions. He was still too small to understand, barely a year old, but the fear that she could see in his blue eyes and feel in his tiny body, was just all too real.
And then, they came to a sudden halt in the middle of an abandoned, bright white office.
An oak table stood to the far left, paper and other office utensils littered around and on top of it, a chair with only one arm rest remaining pushed to the side. To her right, was something that once must have been a storage closet of some sorts, but wasn’t more than pieces of wood and metal hinges anymore.
A giant window wall was also to her left, but she couldn’t see the outsides, the dark clouds in the night sky hiding whatever skylight might have been visible otherwise.
But the thing she notices first, was the dead end.
There was only one door, the one in her back that she had just stepped through, and no other way out. The windows were laminated glass, and even if Oliver would have had his bow and quiver with him, she wasn’t sure if he could have gotten through. Not without luring the man that was following them right to where they were.
Pulling her son closer to her chest, she followed her husband deeper into the room, and watched as he stepped around the broken desk. Ducking for a moment, he reappeared with a bow and a set of arrows in his hands, his eyes firmly trained onto a spot behind her. She hadn’t known that this was one of his hideouts, that this abandoned and broken place had been one of his many stashes around the city, but somehow it made sense. The building belonged to him, and while it was planned to get torn down due to safety reasons, those plans were still months away.
“There you are.”
The cold, calculating voice behind her made her spin with a speed that made her back crack, but even before she could see who had spoken, Oliver’s bow had been raised, one of the arrows nocked, while the others were waiting between two fingers of the hand that was holding the grip. His whole body posture screamed that he was ready to shoot, that he was ready to kill, to protect his family. He didn’t care that the man who had spoken saw him with those weapons, didn’t care what it could mean for his alter-ego identity. She saw how he mentally prepared himself to do whatever he would need to do, to protect their son, his wife, and himself. To protect his family.
Putting their son down, she stepped forwards as well, pulling out her own weapon. She wasn’t as skilled as her husband was, not by a long shot, but she was still ready to protect what was most precious to her.
“Don’t move.”
“Take one more step and you will be dead before your body hits the ground.”
From the corner of her eyes, she could see Oliver move slightly, and for the shortest of moments, her focus was broken, drawing her eyes to her husband, to the movement she couldn’t decipher the meaning of.
And that was the moment, her heart went from too fast, to frozen in place.
That second where her eyes hadn’t been on the threat, she felt movement behind her, and before she could react, a hard hand wrapped itself around her neck, squeezing. The man who had chased them for so long, stood now behind her, using her body as cover from the angry yells and threats of her husband, and tightened his hold on her. Air became nonexistent in her lungs, and with a panicked impulse, she shrieked, unintentionally pushing the last of the air from her body.
White spots filled her vision before fading to back, deafening her ears at the same time, and her last conscious thought was to skip back.
Her vision got blurry and seemed to move without any proper anchor, and then she faced the man once more, the man who had just forced all of her breath from her lungs, standing several feet away from her in the middle of the door frame, a self-assured grin on his face.
From the corner of her eyes, she could see Oliver move but this time, she stayed where she was, keeping her eyes firmly locked on the man, keeping her focus.
Oliver inched closer and then moved faster than she had ever seen him move, knocking the man unconscious with a punch that looked like he hadn’t held back one bit, at least not if the amount of blood that shot from his nose and the crunching sound of breaking bones was any indication.
As soon as the man hit the ground, Oliver turned around to her, pulling her into his arms for a moment, before picking up their son, bundling their little family in a tight embrace. Both of them buried their noses in their son’s little face, mumbling soothing words to the scared toddler, as well as to each other.
Neither of them had eyes on the man that had followed them for hours, days even, and when she pulled back with the instant fear that she shouldn’t turn her back on a threat, he was gone.
A new wave of panic started to raise inside of her, and before she could put a conscious thought into her actions, time rewound itself again, and came to a sudden stop just before the moment where Oliver supposedly punched the man unconscious.
She watched as the man crumbled to the floor again, but when her husband came over to take her into his arms, she kept her eyes trained on the still form. Noticing how Oliver picked up their son, she took him from his father’s arms, before nodding at the still unmoving body.
“We should tie him up and bring him somewhere where the SCPD can find him. I don’t want him anywhere near our son anymore. Ever.”
Oliver nods in an instant and the hard look on his face told her that he felt just like she did.
Pressing a quick kiss to their son’s head, he then moved over to the unmoving body on the ground, pulling a set of cable ties from somewhere inside of his pockets. She watched as he tied them around the other man’s wrist, pulling them tighter than necessary, but before he could link them together to make sure that the man wouldn’t have any kind of freedom, he started to move.
She didn’t know how it happened, the moves to fast and blurry, but somehow Oliver ended on his back, his eyes closed and a scarlet red lined dripping from his mouth, but before she could scream his name, or move back, or react in any other way than pure shock, the man who had been hunting them for so long stood in front of her, ripping her son from her arms.
And then the weight of her son in her arms was gone, together with the monster that took him.
She didn’t even have time to react, had no time to tighten her hold on her baby, to even just try and protect him, and then he was already gone, out of the room, out of her sight, and somehow also out of her heart, leaving the biggest gaping whole behind she could have ever imagined.
Panic, a voice-shattering scream and time rewound itself again, but not far enough.
She could still see Oliver getting knocked out, could still feel her baby boy being ripped from her arms, and could still feel the panic cursing through her veins, freezing her blood with every new moment a bit more.
Time went back further and further, until it reached the point where Oliver moved the first time, inching closer towards the threat.
This time, she didn’t even hesitate. She didn’t get distracted by her husband, didn’t wait for him to take over, she just acted upon the fear and panic and grief and terror that was flooding her mind, and pulled the trigger on her crossbow. Once. Twice. A third time.
Each bolt founds its target, piercing through the man’s neck, his chest, his stomach, pushing him backwards. She watched in horror, with the taste of bile on her tongue, as his body dropped to the ground, a crimson puddle growing bigger underneath him by the second, watched as the last spasm of a dying man went through his body, before he became unnaturally still, unmoving. Dead.
She killed him.
She killed.
She was a killer.
Panic washed over her once more, constantly feeding into her system. Before she could see time shift though, she caught the expression on her husband’s face, and felt her knees giving way. For once, she embraced the panic and the time shift that would surely follow.
The next time her blurry vision cleared again, she pulled the trigger again, but this time, the bolts buried themselves into the shoulder of the person facing her, into his thigh, his foot, effectively immobilizing his movement and the threat that he was posing to her family, her child.
As soon as he hit the ground in a pained cry, she turned around, trying her best to ignore the shocked expression on her husband’s face, before bending down to scoop up her son, hiding her face in his little frame, breathing him in. Her hold on him was too tight, she knew that, and the way that she was hugging him was probably scaring him a bit in that situation, but she needed to know that he was safe, that he was here, that he was in her arms, safe and sound.
A moment later, she felt Oliver’s arms around them, pulling her smaller frame against his chest, and keeping their son protected between them, but the support and comfort she had expected from his action, stayed out. Even though he held both of them tightly to him, it felt like Oliver was miles away from her, barely even able to look at her, let alone really touch her.
She felt him pull away much too soon, his hands now firmly on her shoulders, turning her so that the injured and immobilized threat was to their side, still in their peripheral vision and several yards away, and yet somehow between them.
The emotions she had tried not to see on his face, were now on full display and each one felt like a punch to the guts. Like a knife twisting its way through her abdomen upwards, towards her lungs, taking away her breath, before heading for her heart next.
Disbelief.
Disgust.
Fear.
Distrust.
Hatred.
Those eyes that she could normally lose herself in were now the reason for a level of agony she hadn’t felt before, which only grew exponential as she felt his hand moving underneath her own, pulling their son away from her arms and out of her reach.
The look on his face was as clear as any words he could have given her, and the sudden loss of her family was too much for her to handle.
Time rewound itself again, though the feeling of loss and grief and self-hatred stayed.
She watched as Oliver took a step closer, watched as he knocked the man out, watched as he tied him up right afterwards on her almost frantic plea, all the while she crouched onto the floor and pulled her son to her chest again, praying to whatever deity that she wouldn’t have to lose him again.
Like she was in trance, she watched as Oliver collected their weapons, before lifting the man onto his feet, shoving him roughly towards the stairs that they had hasted up a few moments – or had it been hours? –– ago, commanding him in his best Arrow-voice to move.
She followed, their son still tightly held in her arms, and Oliver was the tail, keeping an eye on her and their child, as well as the man who had made their life a living nightmare the past hours, days, and weeks.
As soon as the man was on the stairs though, she started to feel uneasy again, the distance between herself and him simultaneously too far and still to close. There was no telling what he could do with several yards between then, running or attacking, and the distance between him and Oliver were even wider, almost a whole flight of stairs. She didn’t understand how her husband could stay that far behind, how he would risk the possibility that that man would harm their son or would attempt to flee, turning into an even bigger threat.
Not daring to turn away from the man, she called out to her husband, asking him to come closer, asking him to get between their child, and the man who had threatened to kill their entire family one by one. And as soon as she called for him, she felt Oliver getting closer, moving faster, heard his agreeing words, but he was still too far behind, too slow, too far away from the threat the other man was posing.
Their stalker took off, his hands once more free from the cable ties, running down the stairs taking three at a time. Out of sheer panic and fear for her baby, she came to a sudden halt, frozen in place with her arms tightening around the small boy she was holding, her whole body curling around him the best way possible. She wouldn’t allow anyone to take him away from her again.
Oliver followed on an instant, trying to catch the man, but wasn’t fast enough, and the gap between the ever-looming threat and her husband grew with every new breath she took.
She reached the end of the stairs before Oliver did, and saw how the man pushed through the heavy glass doors that lead into the mall the offices were built on top of.
Calling out for the security to stop him, to catch him, to do something, she didn’t dare to get closer to the man, not while her son was still whimpering in her arms and her husband wasn’t there yet either.
She had to watch in horror as the security tried and failed to catch the man, how they stumbled and struggled before he managed to push past the outer doors and then was gone once more.
A harsh gush of air passed her, and then Oliver was hot on his heels, leaving her behind without a second thought, without a glace back or even just making sure that their son was okay. He just ran, leaving them behind while throwing himself headfirst into a mission during bright daylight, his bow and arrows still tightly in hands.
She felt herself crumbling and the only thing that held her somewhat upright was the weight of her son in her arms, his tiny arms wrapped around her neck and holing onto strands of her hair.
He heard her name being called by the only other person she trusted as much as her husband, the only other person she would look to for safety and security. Diggle stood a short distance away from her, near one of the smaller side entrances, and looked at her in confusion and worry.
She felt her feet moving again, and they didn’t stop until she was right in front of her friend, until her forehead came to rest against one of his huge arms, until she knew that her baby was safe, that at least Dig was still there. She felt the hand of his other arm come around her and pull her in a bit more, before she heard his question, his need to know what had happened.
She couldn’t remember what exactly she said, or how she sounded, but she told him about the man, about how Oliver had chased him and how he had just abandoned her, them. She told him that she knew that Oliver hated her, that he had broken up not only their marriage, but any kind of relationship to her, that he had left.
She didn’t hear a word of what her friend said, only felt the vibration of his voice in her body, before everything suddenly turned silent, still, dead.
A scream of agony ripped from her throat, as the weight in her arms, her child, her son, suddenly just vanished, disappearing into thin air, leaving behind an empty cradle where she had just held him. Crying out in terror, she jerked forwards…
…and screamed into the darkness that suddenly surrounded her.
Her hands frantically reached around, panic surging through her as she searched for her baby, her son, but couldn’t find him anywhere. Her hands moved over her blankets, but found nothing but cold, empty sheets all around her. Her panic grew even stronger, and she could hear her own heartbeat in her ears, pounding too fast, too hard, through her body.
The logical part of her brain, the smartest part of herself pointed out various things, things she knew, but she couldn’t really hear them over her panic, over the sheer terror of losing her baby and her husband. Of being left behind.
Swinging her right hand outside, it collided harshly with the corner of her nightstand, making her yelp out in pain, but didn’t stop her desperate attempts of doing something.
Touching her phone, she nearly ripped it from its charger, before hitting her speed dial, her free hand pressing against her forehead in hopes of shutting out the images that were still within her mind.
The phone rang three times into her ear, before the sound got replaced by a slightly groggy but somehow very alert, male voice, which instantly calmed her down a bit.
“Felicity? What’s wrong?”
And then it hit her, full force, like drenching her frantic body in ice-cold water. She was calling Oliver Queen, because of a nightmare she had had with him in it. A nightmare where they had been married with a kid, both things that they most definitely were not in the real world. She didn’t have a child, didn’t have a son. She and Oliver weren’t together, let alone married.
Frack.
How the hell was she supposed to explain to him why she was calling him in the middle of the night, when they were most definitely not an item, or ever did something like that before?! How was she supposed to tell him that she had dreamed of him, of their family, of losing them?! How, by the holy Google gods, was she supposed to tell him that she needed to hear his voice, needed to make sure that he was still there somewhere. The he hadn’t left her.
The hold of her free hand that she had on her hair grew tighter, pulling painfully at the strands, while the hand that held her phone cramped up.
Double frack.
Trying to calm her breathing and not fall into a hyperventilating panic attack, she didn’t realize that the pause grew too long, not until he spoke her name once more, this time with more force, more worry. She could hear him moving, but only the sound of keys in the background managed to pull her back into reality with a sharp tug.
“Oliver, hi!” Her voice was forced, too cheery, but the hope that he would just swallow her lie, made her push on. “I’m sorry, it’s nothing. I hit the wrong speed dial, that is all. All good, nothing to worry about! It’s nothing, I’m fine!”
“Felicity.” She could almost see his face while speaking her name, the deep frown between his brows, the tightly pressed together lips, his arms crossed over his chest. He didn’t swallow the lie to stand.
Breathing out for a long second and slumping forward until her forehead came into contact with her knees, before opening her mouth again.
“Sorry… I just… I had a nightmare, and I was scared. I didn’t realize that I called you, sorry. I’m fine though, so it’s okay.” Before he could say anything else, or even worse, before she could say anything else that would put her into a very uncomfortable position, she pressed a few more words out. “I’m sorry again for waking you! Night.”
And with that, she hung up, her original panic now fully turned into embarrassment, shame, and a very different kind of anxiety.
Dropping the phone onto the mattress, she tried to take a calming breath, an attempt that fell flat when the offending device cried out a second later, Oliver’s face looking up at her.
Frackety frack!
Knowing very well that if she were to pick up his call right now, she would definitely tell him everything that she had dreamed about, and wouldn’t that be fun, she turned off her phone, effectively silencing its crying. It felt weird, because she barely ever left her phone out of reach or turned off, but right now she couldn’t handle its presence, and the connection it had to the outside world. To that one person who should definitely not know what was going on in her mind while she was sleeping.
Turning the phone face-down onto the mattress for good measure, she peeled her feet out of the twisted sheets around her ankles, and made her way towards the bathroom that was connected to her bedroom. Her feet were a bit uncertain, the adrenaline that had been running through her body making her muscles too tense and awkward to walk in a straight line, but she did manage to get to the sink in one piece, without running into the doorframe or stumbling over the few clothes that were scattered around her bed.
Opening the tap and pushing it to the far left side, she waited until the water was almost too cold to stand, before putting her face into the stream, evoking instantly a series of goosebumps to appear along her arms and up her back. It was freezing cold, but the sensation allowed her mind to look at her situation with a bit more sanity.
Pulling back from the icy sensation when it got too much, she stared at herself in the mirror, before starting to speak.
“My name is Felicity Megan Smoak. I am not married to Oliver Queen, we are not together at all, no matter if I want that or not. It was a nightmare. There is no such thing as rewinding time, with the exception of breaking the relativity theorem of Albert Einstein, and that would require a speed that I can definitely not reach. I mean, have you seen my track-grades from High School? No way.” She closed her eyes for a second, trying to will the impulse to ramble away.
Three.
Two.
One.
“I do not have a child, and therefore do not have a son with Oliver.” An image of the little boy popped into her mind, and for a moment her eyes squeezed shut again.
“I am safe here.” That one was harder to swallow, because while she rarely felt threatened when she was at home, her nighttime job did show her just how unsafe the city could be. That was also the reason why she had improved her home security system quite a bit right after Count Vertigo had threatened to kill her.
Tightening her hold around the sink, she continued.
“I am safe here, it was just a nightmare. No one is here to harm me or my child. Because I do not have a child. It was just a nightmare.”
She stared at the mirror, at her own face, for a long minute, and then huffed out in frustration.
Her little monologue didn’t really help. It took the edge off, yes, and it confirmed the facts that she already knew, but it did nothing to the emotions inside of her head and heart, and nothing against the feeling of loss and… loneliness.
Pushing herself off the sink, Felicity made her way out of the bathroom again, flipping the light switch off and the one in the hallway on. The uncomfortable feeling, the feeling of being watched or followed, didn’t leave her, so she made her way over to her security system, checking its entries, as well as checking twice if every sensor was online. Afterwards, she made her way through her apartment, first turning on the lamp next to her couch, before checking every window latch, making sure that they were actually closed. The one that led to her fire escape was checked twice, before she turned the key around, something she usually didn’t do.
While Oliver normally didn’t visit her at home, there had been one occasion where she had found him sitting on her fire escape, staring into the night, keeping guard. It had been one of those nights where the bad guy had escaped, and that particular one had had a preference for young blondes in her neighborhood.
Back then, she had been grateful for his offer to keep watch, even though she hadn’t been able to really sleep, knowing that Oliver Queen was sitting on her fire escape all night long.
After securing her apartment the best she could, Felicity made her way into her kitchen, her feet now steadier once more, though the coldness of the night started to creep through her comfy PJ’s. Getting herself a glass of water was easy enough, but to drink it without spilling some turned out to be impossible. A sharp knock on the door had made her jerk, forcing the liquid out of the glass and all over her shirt and the top of her PJ bottoms, and because she obviously went for cold water, the sensation was more than just unpleasant.
Quietly cursing the person who she knew would be standing outside of her door, Felicity reached for a towel and dried the water off as best as she could, before looking at the clock of her microwave. It was 2:37 in the morning, but apparently that didn’t stop him from banging on her door like a maniac.
It ought to be strange that she knew that it was him, based on the rhythm and force of his knocking, but when you spend pretty much all your waking hours with someone, you pick up on things like that. Especially when you have a huge crush on that person. Or when that person was Oliver Queen. So, logically, it was only reasonable that she knew exactly who would stand in front of her, even without him calling out her name.
“Felicity? It’s me, open up.”
She exhaled heavily, and tried to steel herself against what was to come. She knew him well enough, to know that he wouldn’t leave until she would open that door, and – if necessary – he would even break in, and wouldn’t have any qualms with it.
Felicity walked the short distance from her kitchen to the door and opened it, already prepared to send him back home, when Oliver just brushed past her and moved into her apartment, taking in her living room with the same calculating look he always wore when he was checking for threats on a mission.
She still stood baffled at the door, its handle still in hands, when he walked back to her again, reaching for her shoulder to turn her around.
“Felicity, what happened?”
In answer, she just shook her head, slightly annoyed by his presence already. Or at least, annoyance was the emotion she tried to focus on, while he stood that close to her.
“Oliver, what are you doing here?”
He ignored her question, and she felt his eyes looking her once over, checking for any visible injuries.
“What happened?”
“Why are you here?”
“Felicity!”
She couldn’t tell if it was the pitch with which he spoke her name, or his stubborn thickhead for continuously ignoring her question and pressing for an answer himself, something she so clearly didn’t want to talk about that she had even hung up on him, but whatever the reason, Felicity exploded.
“I had a nightmare, okay? And I don’t know why, or how, but when I woke up, I dialed your number because I needed to hear your voice, okay?! I needed to make sure that you are okay, that this is real, that I’m not still dreaming. But I’m fine now, so you can go.”
She turned around, out of his hold around her shoulder and opened the door once more – she hadn’t even noticed that Oliver had closed it when he had reached her – and gestured him to move.
He didn’t move.
Of course he didn’t move, he was Oliver Queen, the world’s most stubborn thickhead.
And Felicity started to get really angry now.
“I am serious, Oliver. Go.”
His hand landed once more on her shoulder, and he took a step forwards, coming to a halt just a tad closer than he had been before, his blue eyes boring into her own.
“What was the nightmare about?”
Frantically shaking her head, Felicity tried to keep the rising panic in check. His question had triggered a new wave of images, and even worse, a new wave of emotions within her, which started to threaten to swallow her whole. She knew that if he wouldn’t go soon, she would tell him, and that was not something she wanted to do.
At all.
“Nuh-uh. Nope, we are not doing this.”
But Oliver being Oliver, he just stared at her, stubborn as ever, and his hand she was still all too aware of on her shoulder started to hold on to her just a bit tighter. Offering her just the right amount of comfort that her emotions needed to break.
She knew that he wouldn’t leave until she would give him what he wanted, and the hold she had tried to keep on her emotions started to waver.
Huffing out in annoyance, Felicity gave in. Closing the door again, she stepped around him once more, before heading towards her couch. If she was already forced to talk about it, at least she could be comfortable. Flopping down in one corner, she reached for her favorite blanket, and wrapped it around her shoulders, tucking her feet closer to her body and drew her knees in.
A moment later, she felt the other side of the couch dip, but noticed in relief that Oliver stuck to his side. She wasn’t sure if she could handle his touch right now. Not looking at him, but rather staring outside of the window closest to her, Felicity allowed herself a minute to collect her thoughts.
She needed to sort through the nightmare, needed to carefully watch what, and what not to tell him, while simultaneously still trying to push the emotions aside again, which remembering the nightmare evoked within her.
It wasn’t an easy task, especially considering the plot of her dream, but in the end, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and started to speak.
“We were… on a mission, and someone caught wind that I work with the Arrow. A stalker…” The face of the man she had seen made her involuntarily stumble, and she had to start to play with the edges of her blanket to keep her focus. “He, uhm… He found me, us, and then started to chase us through that abandoned, very bright white building until he had us cornered in an office.”
Even without looking, Felicity could see that Oliver’s brows were drawn tight, that his whole body was tense from what she was telling, but she pushed on. He wanted to know, and now she couldn’t stop herself anymore from speaking, her mind pulling her into the memories more and more.
“You pulled your bow on him and I had a… a crossbow. Don’t ask me where from, I don’t know, it reminded me of the one you gave to Helena, but it was smaller somehow? Like, I could pull it from the back of my jeans and then it just extended and grew until it was about the same size of the crossbow you gave her back then and…”
“Felicity.”
She was rambling, losing focus, but a simple word pulled her out of the spiral.
“Right… Uhm… yeah, so you pointed your bow at him, but I… I… I shot him…” The tears she hadn’t allowed herself to shed after waking up and realizing that it had been a nightmare, started to fall. The look she had seen on his face, the shock and horror and disgust she had seen in his usually so kind eyes, forced one tear after another from her. “And that look I saw on your face afterwards…”
The tears grew heavier, fell faster. Felicity swiped angrily at them, almost knocking her glasses from her nose in the haste to get them to stop falling.
She more felt than saw him move, but instinctively scooted back, further away from him, making it as clear as she could that she couldn’t handle his touch or comfort right now. Not while those images where still inside of her head, almost burned into the insides of her eyelids.
“I somehow skipped back in the dream, and instead of… of killing him, I just shot him, but you still looked at me like… like… like I was a monster, which oh god, I was!”
A sob tore from her throat, which she desperately tried to muffle with a palm over her mouth. Scooting even further away from Oliver, after seeing his second attempt to comfort her, she continued her story, tears leaking from her eyes and her voice much thinner than before.
“It skipped back again, and when we brought him out so that the cops could take him in, you just… you left and I was alone with the baby and I thought that…” Just the thought was enough to hurt her physically, but the memories and emotions she carried with it felt like a stab to her guts. “I thought that… that you just left and then the baby was gone too, and I woke up and I was so scared and… and… and… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called you, I didn’t know that I was doing it, I swear! I’m sorry, I know it's dumb and not real and dumb, but… but… I’m sorry.”
Her head started to shake violently from left to right, while her ramble grew faster and faster, and her mind threatened to drown her in guilt, pain, and terror. She didn’t even notice that Oliver was suddenly right next to her, hadn’t noticed him crossing the small distance on her couch, before her whole body was pulled into his arms and pressed into his frame. His left knee was behind her back, while his right leg was still touching the carpet in front of her couch, his arms tightly wound around her, and his chin tucked her head underneath, pressing her into his chest. It was a full body embrace, something they had never done, not even remotely close, and for a moment, Felicity froze in place, not even daring to breathe.
But then another sob came through, and the muscles in her stomach forced her to curl even tighter into herself, and – by extension – into Oliver.
She didn’t hear anything, nor did she see anything for a long time, with the exception of what her mind had come up with when she had been asleep. Fear filled her lungs and made them constrict painfully, and the nearly overwhelming feeling of loss made her cry even harder. But the knowledge, and the sensation that she wasn’t alone, that Oliver was indeed there and not leaving her – at least for the moment – was enough to get her panic to ease up bit by bit, allowing her mind to slowly pull itself back together.
Felicity honestly couldn’t say how long it took her thoughts to slow down again, for her tears to stop pouring from her eyes, or for her heart and lungs to not constrict every other moment, but when she felt herself getting a firmer grip on her actions again, she realized where she was, and what she was doing.
She was in Oliver’s arms, crying all over him, giving her heart even more reasons to take him in, more fodder to bombard her mind with when she wasn’t paying attention.
And yet, it was almost too hard to pull back, even though her smart brain told her that it was the safest choice, the only choice for her.
Three more breaths, that was all that she allowed herself. The same number that she needed to stop her brain from rambling was now granted to her heart to stop beating for any other reason than staying alive.
After her third breath – the deepest one she could take – Felicity pulled herself from his arms and tried to keep her face from showing her emotions, tried to keep her thoughts inside of her head, instead of giving into her default babbling when she was nervous.
Oliver allowed her to pull back, but not to fully break their contact, the palm of his left hand securely holding onto her neck, while his thumb brushed along her jaw, once, twice, a third time. His eyes were scanning her, really looking at her, which made it just so much harder for her to keep everything she felt, thought, and wanted, in. His thumb brushed along her skin once more, and then he opened his mouth.
“That is never going to happen, you hear? I am never going to leave you. Not ever. Okay?”
Even without her glasses, she would have seen the sincerity in his eyes, and even without a vision still somewhat clouded by tears, she would have seen how true his words were. The truth was written all over his face, in the way he looked at her, the sincerity in his eyes, the strong brows that bore into her, begging her to hear him, in the tiny little uptick at the corner of his mouth, pleading with her to understand.
All she could do, was nod weakly, but that was enough to see a soft smile spread over his features, one of those rare ones that she had only ever seen when he was with Thea or herself.
But then the smiles faded again, and seriousness took over, looking at her once more in a way that made her unable to look away.
“And you never need to apologize to me either. If you need me, I’ll be there. I want to be there, so please don’t apologize, ever, for that.”
Rationally, Felicity already knew that.
He had told her that before, had told her that he would be there if she would need someone to talk to, and he had shown that he would be there if she needed help, if she was in physical danger, and yet…
The way that he said it in that moment, with the look he bore, soothed her more than it had ever done before. It wasn’t just calming to hear, but it also managed to calm her mental and emotional state of being a total mess right now.
When she nodded a second time, not trusting her voice yet to actually speak, the smile on his lips returned, this time even bigger and warmer than before. His hand was still cupping her neck, and she could feel the rough pad of this thumb moving over her skin every once in a while, like he didn’t even notice that he was doing it. He smiles at her like that for a few seconds, before his brows pulled together again, this time in confusion, rather than seriousness, and Felicity could almost see a question forming inside of his mind.
“What baby?”
“Huh?”
“You said that I left you alone with ‘the baby’ and then it was suddenly gone as well…”
His words made her flinch, triggering the memory of the moment when she felt the weight in her arms disappear all of the sudden. She didn’t want to think about that. She wasn’t sure if she could think about that, without absolutely losing it. To know that Oliver wasn’t leaving her was one thing, a very important and comforting thing for her to know, but the sheer fear of losing something like a child? Even though she never had a child, and hadn’t even been sure if she wanted children in her future? That feeling was worse than anything she could imagine.
And based on the look she could see on his face, Oliver knew what she was thinking, knew it on a lever that she couldn’t quite understand how. It looked almost like he could relate, something that didn’t make any sense to her, but made her heart ache for him nonetheless.
“What baby?”
His voice was softer now, not really a question, just a way of being curious, an offer to talk if she wanted to. A silent invitation for her to tell him, if she needed to get it off her chest, or to work through what was so visibly still plaguing her.
And still, she felt herself blanching.
How, by the ever loving god of the Internet, was she supposed to tell him that it was their baby, without basically declaring that she dreamed of them having a family? How was she supposed to lie to him when he looked at her with those beautiful, wide, blue eyes, almost screaming with concern, worry and care? How the frack was she supposed to tell him any of that, and not die of embarrassment or move into another city? How–
“Our baby…?”
Oliver’s eyes were huge, like he had heard all her thoughts in her mind which couldn’t have, because that would mean that she had–
Felicity slapped her hands over her mouth, and she felt her on eyes growing wider in sheer terror. She did not just ramble that out, did she?
Scrambling away from him, as far away as the couch allowed, she felt the armrest press into her back, and a new string of babbling made its way past her lips.
“What?! No, of course not! We don’t have a baby. We aren’t even together, let alone did what you would have to do in order to have a baby. You don’t even see me in that way that would be helpful to get to the part that is required to make a baby in the first place. So, no, definitely not our baby. No, nuh-uh.”
She wanted to find a hole in the ground and bury herself. Or knock herself over the head with something very heavy to forget that this night had ever happened. Or just die right there on the spot. All three options seemed equally appealing to her right now, especially while she tried to look anywhere but even the general direction of where Oliver was still sitting on her couch.
Why couldn’t her brain-to-mouth filter work, just this once?
“You dream about us… being together? Having a baby together, a family together?”
Felicity shook her head violently, making herself even smaller and pressing her back even more firmly into the armrest behind her. Fear of what was to come started to spread though her chest and made her want to press her eyes tight until all of this was over.
She knew that at the very least Oliver will tell her off, would tell her that they couldn’t be together for whatever reason, or would give her the same speech he had given her after they had come back from Russia. Or – and that was even more likely – he would tell her that he didn’t see her like that. That it was just a little girl’s crush she had on him. That he was still in love with Laurel. Or Sara. Or Shado. Or whoever else. That he didn’t want to be with her.
Her head was spiraling again, coming up with one reason after another that he could give her why what she just blurred out wasn’t ever going to happen. She was so lost in her own panic and spiraling that the feeling of his touch against her jaw made her nearly jump off the couch.
Her head snapped towards Oliver on its own accord, but moved backwards at the same time, getting away from the hand that had reached for her. With her back now so tightly pressed into the couch that it actually hurt, Felicity stared at him with wide eyes, afraid of what he would now surely say.
She watched unmoving as an expression of hesitancy and maybe even hurt flashed over his features, before his hand moved again. Scooting just a bit closer to her, Felicity felt his skin making contact with hers once more, this time gently cupping the side of her neck, his thumb coming to rest at the joint of her jaw.
“I would never leave you, or our children. Never, Felicity.”
She heard his words loud and clear, but not just those that he had actually spoken out loud. And those unspoken words made her head spin again, but this time for a very different reason, making her almost dizzy. Just like snapping one’s fingers, the panic that had steadily risen inside of her stopped, turned around and left quietly, leaving a sensation of pure astonishment, disbelief and confusion behind. The last emotion was purely based on two words he had said, two words that caused the insides of her brain, heart, and lower stomach to do all sorts of loops and tumbles.
“Our children…?”
Her voice was still thin, too thin to be properly heard over a longer distance, but with how close Oliver was sitting next to her, she was sure that he still understood. At least, if the almost shy look that ghosted over his eyes was any indication. He didn’t answer her question though, his eyes firmly trained on hers, silently asking her to listen to what he was about to say next.
“I need you to understand that, to know that. I will not leave you. I’m not sure if I could, even if I wanted to, and I do not want to. I don’t, okay?“
The rollercoaster of emotions that she had been living through the past hour or so didn’t seem to want to stop apparently. How could he say things like that, when only weeks earlier he had told her not so subtlety that there would never be anything even remotely similar to what he had just said between them? The range of emotions that were running through her system were overwhelming to say the least, nearly crippling in one moment, and then freeing and alleviating in the next.
But no matter what she wanted to hear, or what she thought she heard, Felicity needed to make sure, needed to be sure, that she understood him correctly. Because if not… If not and she just assumed… Well, let’s just say, the option of moving into another city would then need to be replaced by moving to the Antarctic, or maybe even to the moon. A place where neither the internet, nor the Arrow or all of Oliver Queen’s money could find her.
She needed to know what he was saying, implying, hinting at.
“I don’t… I don’t understand… What are you saying?”
The expression in his eyes grew even softer, to a point where she didn’t think she ever saw it before. It was obvious that he was searching for the right words, not being a person who easily spoke about his feelings, but at the same time she knew that when he would speak, every word that would be said was true. It wouldn’t be a lie, or a heist, or a feint. It wouldn’t be an excuse or something he would hide behind. The look he gave her was enough to assure her of those facts.
So, Felicity watched him, her back still pressed into the armrest of her couch, with his hand still cupping the side of her neck and his thumb still resting at the joint of her jaw. She watched and stayed silent, allowing him to collect his thoughts, while simultaneously trying to keep her own thoughts at bay, from keeping them from rambling or from overanalyzing, from jumping to conclusions of a situation she didn’t know the outcome of yet.
And then something changed again, the same determined look covered his blue eyes that always settled down when he came to a decision. Though instead of like all the other times, Oliver didn’t look like he was going into battle. At least not a physical one.
“I do not want to leave you. Ever. I want to have you in my life, in whatever way that may be, in whatever way you would want me to. But I will never leave you.”
Felicity was sure that if she were to look into a mirror right now, she would very much look like a deer caught in headlights. Or maybe like she had been smacked in the face with a heavy book.
She had heard his words, of course she had, but it took her a minute to really hear them.
And while his words had been carefully picked – she was sure of it – her own reply was less than graceful, though no less emotional.
“Yeah…?”
The warm, bright smile that he gave her, combined with a few small nods, made her insides warm up, tingling along the back of her spine and all the way through her chest and belly.
“In whatever way I want?”
Dancing around the words was easy, and the fact that the soft look he kept on his face, as well as the warmth of his palm that as still in contact with her skin gave her the safety to allow herself to follow that train of thought her heart had wanted to take for a long time now.
“Whatever way.”
The smile that he spotted at that statement was hard to name. It was so rare that Oliver really smiles, that he showed how he felt, that it was still not quite as easy as she thought it would be to read him. He looked like he was amused, but also a but smug, a combination that made her simultaneously blush and careful. She knew that he wasn’t the same guy he had been after coming back from the island, knew that he wasn’t the same playboy, womanizer, spoilt billionaire son, but looks like that made her easily understand how the girls could have thrown themselves at his feet all the time before the island. But she also knew that he would never play with her, no matter what the situation. They were too close to each other for that, and had gone through too many complex and hard situations, to be like that.
Aside from those two impressions though, the most prominent look he held was happiness. Or at least a level of happiness she had never seen on him before. And that was enough for Felicity to push aside the last of her doubts of the situation, the last of her fears that her nightmare had triggered to arise, and allowed herself to tab into those feelings and impulses she had tried to suppress and hide for so long.
“So… If I wanted you to be in a suit–”
Holy Google, she loved it when he was in a suit. In general, men in suits just somehow looked better than without, but Oliver Queen in a suit? A man who already looked almost forbidden handsome in sweats and a shirt, in a dress shirt with tie and slacks? That was a sight she could enjoy all day long.
“–in a restaurant–“
The had eaten together before. All three of them, Oliver, Dig and herself, sitting over fries and Big Belly Burgers, discussing cases, or eating takeout down in the Foundry. Sometimes even just Oliver and herself, but never in a setting that she had in mind right now. Never in a way that would leave pretty much no room for interpretation onto what was going on.
“–at a table across from me–“
The image her mind showed her, of Oliver sitting across from, with either his suit jacket hung around his chair or still on, was almost enough to make a very dopy, and most definitely very embarrassing smile appear on her face.
“–having dinner together…?”
There was a glimmer in his eyes she had never seen before, and it somehow made him even more attractive. Softer too, younger, like part of the burden he always carried around was temporarily gone. Felicity couldn’t understand how she could have been the reason for that in any way, but wouldn’t tempt fate in asking him why he was looking at her like that.
“Like a date?”
Moving her back out from the armrest just a bit, she nodded, pushing her glasses up her nose a bit to see him more clearly.
“Yes, like a date.”
“Then I would be more than happy to do that.”
That hadn’t been the answer she had expected. Sure, part of her had hoped, or dreamed or whished for it, but to actually hear those words – not dream or think them – but hear them, and see the expression on his face in combination with them, was almost too good to be true.
“Yeah?
Oliver smiles at her, and then the hand that was still cupping her neck moved slightly, away from neck and up to her cheek, brushing his thumb along her cheekbone in small circles.
“Yes.”
And just with that simple word, both of them grinned like idiots at each other, wide and uncaring, happy. A new kind of hesitation and worry settled within her, but it was that little flicker that one would get when thinking about a first date, not the kind that one got after waking up screaming for a nightmare. It was the good kind, the kind that reminded you that you were alive and that you were living your life.
But because Felicity’s brain was sometimes too smart for her own good, a thought popped into the forefront of her mind, blocking up that fuzzy warmth that had started to spread through her core.
“What about that whole thing you told me after we came back from Russia? You know, that whole ‘because of the life you lead, you think that it's better to not be with someone that you could really care about’ talk. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to jinx anything and I am already really looking forward to that date – though we didn’t even really talked about that yet, but still I’m sure that it’s going to be nice, great even, except when it’s not, because then it’s going to be super awkward, not just on the date but also at work and in the Foundry, and – oh god, when Dig learns about that, I will never hear the end of it, but that is not the point, what I was trying–“
“Felicity?”
His voice speaking her name with that soft, slightly amused look and eyebrows raised, made her stop dead in her ramble. It had been a long time since she had lost herself that badly, and the heat shot right away into her face, warming her cheeks and ears, all the way down to her neck. Biting down on her tongue to keep herself from continuing, she answered in a hum to his question.
“Huh?”
“I was an idiot for saying that.”
Regret was written all over his face, and for a moment, Felicity wanted nothing more than to try to brush the frown from his forehead, smoothing out the edges he pushed onto his face.
Not trusting herself what she would do if she would start touching him though, she instead huffed out her agreement to his statement. For someone who was as smart as Oliver, he had a talent of being incredibly stupid at times.
“I knew it pretty much as soon as I said it, even without Dig trying to figuratively beat some sense into me afterwards with one of his looks. Back then, I didn’t know what saying those words, or believing them for a moment, would mean. I still don’t know, to be honest, but I do know, that my life is so much better with you in it.”
The warm smile he had worn for a while now just grew deeper with those words, and Felicity felt herself falling even more.
And then Oliver pushed back, scooting away from her, and releasing the hold he had had on her face. That action and the words he had just finished to say didn’t fit together at all, and a surge of panic shot through her, combined with the irrational fear that he would draw back, that while acknowledging that he wanted to be in her life, something was still holding him back. If he were now to change his mind, Felicity really didn’t know how or even if she could handle that level of rejection.
But instead of moving even further away after standing, Oliver offered her his hand, the same one that had cupped her jaw just a moment ago.
“Come on. There is still some time left before you have to get up again.”
Her hand reached for his instinctively, and before she could really understand what he had said, she was on her feet, only a few inches away from his very broad, very warm, and very handsome body.
Feeling herself blush, Felicity quickly checked the clock on the microwave to her far right, and had to double check to make sure that her eyesight still worked. She would have thought that it had been maybe thirty minutes, tops, since Oliver had come, but it was already almost 4am. Which meant that Oliver had been here for nearly one and a half hours, watching her fall apart, listen to her babble, comforting her, and then agreeing to go on a date with her with the broadest grin she had ever seen him truly wear.
To say she had emotional whiplash would be an understatement.
“Though I’ve heard that your boss is always late, so I’m sure that he wouldn’t say anything if you were to come into office later to get a bit more sleep.”
A teasing tone sneaked into his voice, and the telltale smirk that he wore every once in a while made her grin up at him without her permission to do so. But the almost suggestive wording made another wave of heat flush over her skin. Biting on her tongue, Felicity tried very hard to keep her foot-in-mouth disease from showing. Instead, she smiled at his joke and followed the slight tug on the hand Oliver hadn’t released yet, and apparently hadn’t planned to do so any time soon either. On the contrary, as soon as she followed his lead, she felt him stop for a short moment, moving his fingers over and then between her own, intertwining them, before moving forwards again.
But instead of tugging her into her bedroom and into bed, like part of her brain really, really wanted him to, he came to a halt in front of her bedroom, pulling her between himself and the fully opened door.
“You want me to stay out here until you fell asleep again?”
In any other situation she would have either laughed at the suggestion, blushed or just stared at him in confusion. In any other situation his offer would have come because there was any kind of physical threat out there that he wanted to protect her from. But that wasn’t what he was offering, and she knew that. No, he was showing – in his typical non-verbal but very action-speaking way – that he wasn’t about to just leave.
Just alone for that, Felicity really wanted to press a kiss to his cheek, or maybe even to those wonderfully smooth-looking lips, but she knew exactly that she wouldn’t be able to stop herself once her heart learned how it felt to kiss Oliver Queen.
So, instead, she just squeezed his hand in gratitude, before shaking her head.
“No, that’s okay. You need to catch some sleep too–“ preferably in my bed, though she carefully kept that thought inside of her head, before adding a bit teasingly, “otherwise you are going to be really late tomorrow, and I’m not sure if your EA wouldn’t smack a whole bunch of folders and papers onto your table for you to read through and sign, just for that.”
“She would?”
“Most definitely.”
And just like that, Oliver laughed. It was so rare to really hear him laugh, not just a huff of air or a very quiet chuckle, that it was infectious. Joining in for a few heartbeats, Felicity allowed herself to just be in that moment, the memories of her nightmare fading with very new second where Oliver showed her that side of himself. That carefree, but caring side of him, not hidden behind a mask or flimsy pretenses or stupid arguments.
“Are you sure? I’ll stay here if you want.”
She knew that his offer was genuine, but she also knew that she would probably not get any kind of shut-eye if she knew that he was sitting on her couch in the middle of the night.
“Yeah, I’m sure. But thank you!”
A short nod.
“Call me if you need anything, okay? Anything.”
The offer had been extended several times in the past already, and even back then she knew that he had meant it, any yet… After the things that he had told her not even minutes ago, it felt different now, and not just because his voice had dipped just the slightest octave lower when he had spoken his offer, his request.
Nodding at his words, she watched as yet another soft smile spread over his features. She couldn’t remember if she ever saw him smile that often in such a short time and meant it. Those smiles she had seen the past two hours weren’t like the fake, exaggerated and sugarcoated once that he used when he was forced to attend public events, or in their very early days when he had tried to get her to fix a laptop after ‘spilling a latte over it’.
“Good night, Felicity.”
And with that, Oliver pressed a soft kiss to her cheekbone, before stepping back, letting go of their linked hands only at the last possible moment. Felicity felt like it might be the right moment to die now, before she would wake up and realize that it all had been just a dream, that she had fallen asleep over her computers after a long night in the Foundry, that her mind had decided to show her all those things that she was silently longing for.
Deciding to enjoy whatever was currently happening, though, Felicity beamed at him. There was no other word for how she felt the muscles in her face pull and move, and watched as Oliver made his way into the kitchen, turned off the light, before flipping the switch on the lamp next to the couch. The only light source now was the dim street lantern from outside and the moon, but it was still enough to watch as Oliver walked towards the door, watched as he reactivated her security system – he and Dig both had the access codes in case of an emergency – and then watched as he opened her front door. Turning around to look at her once more, Felicity could see the soft smile he spotted even across the distance of her living room and in the spares light. And then she watched as he stepped through the door, and closed it quietly behind him.
Felicity had watched all that, and yet not for a moment felt like he was leaving her. And not even in the sappy way you would see in movies or tv shows, or read in books, where the one leaving would say that they would always be with the one who stayed behind, tapping their chest or pointing at their heart. No, it wasn’t like that at all. It was the knowledge, that Oliver wasn’t leaving. That he wasn’t excluding her or locking her out, or just picking his things and leave for no reason.
And that knowledge let the smile she was still wearing stay, let it stay while she made her way into her bedroom and untangled her sheets, stayed, as she crawled into her bed and pulled the covers over her body, and even stayed as already fading images of her nightmare flashed up again after staring at her bedroom ceiling.
Her fear of loss wasn’t as prominent anymore, wasn’t as tangible anymore as it had been when she had screamed herself awake, and the fear of Oliver leaving had faded completely.
Still smiling, she picked up her phone which still laid face down on her nightstand and turned it back on, and was greeted by five missed calls from Oliver, all from before he had arrived at her apartment. That knowledge made her weirdly enough just smile a bit more.
Moving her fingers smoothly over the display, she typed out a quick message, needing to say those few words because she hadn’t been able to say them when he had still been here.
Thank you for coming.
His reply was almost instant, and parts of her wondered if he was driving and texting at the same time. If that was the case, she would need to have a serious word with him the next day.
Always! Sweet dreams.
With anyone else, even with her former boyfriends, that line would have sounded cheesy, but the circumstances and the sheer fact that it was Oliver who sent them, replaced that connotation with one of pure care and honesty. And knowing Oliver, probably also a hint of teasing, but that was a can of worms Felicity wasn’t ready to open up just now.
Smiling at the screen for a moment longer, she plugged her charger into the phone and then put it on her nightstand.
Closing her eyes, she held onto Oliver’s words, and not just the ones she had just read, but also those he had told her earlier. Held onto the looks he had given her, the sincerity in his words and the feelings she had started to actively give reign after his declaration to never wanting to leave her.
Tuning onto her side, facing her nightstand and phone, Felicity allowed her tiredness to take over, all the while hoping for sweet dreams.