Chapter Text
re·venge [ri-venj] v. to exact punishment or expiation for a wrong on behalf of, especially in a resentful or vindictive spirit.
III.
It would probably surprise people to learn that Felicity wasn't really a fan of happy endings. At least, not the ones that were so falsely bright after a truly horrific story. Why sugar-coat it? Sometimes life didn't get better, people didn't miraculously live through disease and misfortune, falling in love didn't always end in marriage, and the hero didn't always come out triumphant. She preferred the realistic endings. The ones where people said, "Hey, I don't know what's going to happen now, but I really hope it's better than what happened before."
In real life, she always hoped for the happy ending. She cheered for the underdog and believed truth and justice would always prevail. She tried to be honest in her life, to be a good person who gave back and did what she could to make the world a better place. Prior to Oliver, that mostly meant recycling and not using her hacking abilities to make a few crooked politicians eat their ill-advised actions through pain of empty bank accounts. With Oliver, she found a new way to help the world, and also a new way to view it. The rose-tinted glasses were damaged by the time the earthquake machine knocked down half of the Glades. They were all but gone by the time Slade destroyed three-quarters of her team.
It was easy to believe that a happy ending could still prevail when, despite all odds, the protagonist continued to stand up, to fight back, to raise their head high and say, "No more," against the injustice that faced them. It wasn't as easy when the reality was that she didn't see herself as that protagonist. She was the quirky sidekick that somehow managed to snag the hero.
So, what was a sidekick supposed to do when faced with a super-villain like Slade Wilson?
In the movie that ends happy, she would find some clever (if slightly over-the-top) way to defeat him before finding peace in the world she was left with, rebuilding it bit by bit. Maybe she would meet someone new, years down the line, someone who would silently (because love interests never got as much screen time or dialogue) represent rebirth, and she would ride off into the sunset with him, toward a happily ever after that she deserved but never expected to have.
The problem she had with those happy endings was that they weren't really endings. They were beginnings that left the audience with the option of wondering where it all went or assuming that it ended with marriage and babies and dying of old age, warm in their beds. The truth was much more complicated than that. And, really, there was only one man she wanted to do any of that with.
So, what then was the real ending to her tragic story of love and loss?
When Felicity woke, she expected to still be in that club. She expected the overwhelming heat, her hair damp with sweat, her legs dripping with the blood seeping from Oliver's back. She expected the weight of his head in her lap and the firm, unmoving press of the doors at her back. Instead, she blinked bleary eyes open to see an off-white ceiling, a steady beeping noise irritating her ears. Her eyes were so dry they stung, her throat even more so, making it painful when she tried to swallow.
Her eyes darted around in confusion until she saw Quentin Lance sitting in a chair beside her, his head rested on a fist, eyes closed.
She blinked at him, registering the oxygen mask she was wearing, and she looked up and to her right to the see the machine there, monitoring her heart.
She was alive. Lance had come to get them out of the club.
Her heart started racing.
How soon?
Did he get there in time? Were they able to revive Oliver? Was that a pointless hope when she'd felt him die there in her arms?
Her rising heartbeat must've tipped Lance off because he woke suddenly, his eyes shooting open. He stood from his chair and moved toward her, a hand finding hers and squeezing.
His concerned and weary face stared down at her and Felicity felt tears bite at her eyes. Her brows hiked in a silent question.
Hoarsely, he told her, "I'm so sorry."
She squeezed her eyes shut, tears slipping out from beneath, and shook her head.
His hand squeezed tighter around hers. "We got there… They're guessing minutes after you passed out. I… There was a—a sword or something, it was shoved through the door handles. We got it out, opened it up, and there you two were. We… They tried to get Oliver. They tried to resuscitate him, but… It was too late." He swallowed thickly. "I'm sorry. I… I know how much he meant to you."
Felicity's free hand rose to her throat as she choked on a sob. Her shoulders stabbed with pain, but she ignored it. Clawing at the wires and the tubing, she yanked her oxygen mask off and out of her way. She sucked in air desperately, suddenly feeling too surrounded by the blankets and the machines and the closed curtains around her bed. She needed the mask off and the IV out and the scratchy hospital-issue gown she was wearing replaced.
Lance hit a button to raise the bed for her and helped her get the oxygen mask out of the way. "Okay, okay," he soothed, rubbing her arm as she cried.
He was awkward for a long moment, not sure how to help her, but he stayed and he waited and he held her hand.
It took a long few minutes before she could get herself to stop, before the numbness began to seep into her and spread over her body, making her feel hollow and separated from her body. She stared at the blanket over her lap, a pale blue, and picked at a loose thread.
Lance offered her a pair of glasses. Not the ones she'd been wearing that night, but a spare pair. Thea? She wondered. Maybe she'd gone to her apartment to get her things.
A cup of ice chips was offered to her next. "You, uh… You had to have surgery on your shoulder. Stitches on the one, surgery on the stab wound. Looked like you pulled a few things… Maybe from, uh, trying to drag Oliver out…?"
She took the cup and held it in her lap. Slowly, she brought ice chips up to her mouth, letting them melt on her tongue as she stared aimlessly in front of her. "Are you asking me for my statement, Detective Lance?"
He didn't correct her like he used to. It's Officer now, remember? This time he let it pass.
"If you're up to it, I'd like to hear the story. On or off the record's up to you. I, uh… I'm here as a friend, Miss Smoak, not as a police officer."
She turned her eyes to look at him a moment.
A friend.
What a funny concept since all of her friends were dead.
Weren't they?
What did that make Thea then?
An image of Slade suddenly ran through her head and the answer to that was clear.
She was a loose end.
Or maybe a casualty. Not a dead one, obviously, but one who had suffered as much, if not more, by having to survive and bury the rest.
Still, the fact remained, Felicity's friends tended to die, and she didn't want that for the man sitting beside her.
See, without friends, being the last one standing, that made Felicity one thing.
A cockroach at the end of a nuclear war.
And maybe that was better.
"You found a duffle bag with the suit in it, didn't you?" she asked.
He was quiet for a moment before clearing his throat. "Yeah. I did."
She didn't have to ask, "Then you know?" because what was the point? All of his suspicions had finally been confirmed. Hooray for him. It wasn't as if it changed anything. He couldn't bring Oliver back to prosecute him for his crimes. He couldn't yell at Oliver for all that he'd done, all the mistakes he'd made, whether he'd managed to turn Lance's opinion of him around or not. The hood had been unmasked, but now he was dead.
So instead, she said, "I want it. It's mine now."
And Lance sighed, that long, heavy sigh that reminded her that he'd buried a daughter twice, his family had fallen apart only to reunite and fall apart again, and he had every reason to be weary.
"You want the swords too?" he asked, in that kind of snorting, 'what the hell's a matter with people' way of his.
She turned to look at him, her eyes dark and empty. "I do."
He stared back at her, his mouth a grim line, and gave a short nod.
There wasn't much to say after that.
She wondered if, when he'd sat down beside her, he'd expected someone else to wake up. Someone still hopeful. Still sweet and naïve and eager to believe that there was something good left in the world.
She wondered if he was disappointed with who he found instead.
She wondered, but she wasn't sure she cared.
Felicity checked herself out against doctor's orders two days after she woke up in the hospital. Lance wheeled her outside in her wheel chair to his cop car and drove her back to her apartment. He didn't ask if she was all right. She could see the question poised there at the end of his tongue, desperate to ask what he already knew the answer to, but he didn't. When they pulled up out front, she didn't let him get out to walk her upstairs.
"I'll be fine from here," she lied, picking up the plastic bag with her belongings inside; the clothes she'd been wearing, her jewelry, and a battered pair of glasses. She'd wanted Oliver's too, but the police had confiscated it all for their investigation.
As she was climbing out of the car, Lance's hand on her arm made her pause. "Here. What, uh, what we talked about before… I got the swords out of the evidence locker, too." He dug the duffle bag out from the back seat and handed it to her. "Nobody else saw the suit. After I found it, I had the place locked down, nobody in or out. There was a lot of stuff downstairs I didn't think you wanted people finding out about. Not sure you know what you want done with it. I can only pull so many strings for so long, y'know?"
She nodded, taking the duffle bag from him. "I'll take care of it," she said simply, glancing at him briefly before pushing the door open.
As she stepped out, he called to her, "Hey…"
She looked back.
"The funeral… They're having it at Queen Manor. You need a ride, you want someone to stand with you, I can do that, just call, all right?"
She stared at him, the kind man that knew too much and helped so many. "All right." With that, she closed the door and turned, making her way up the cement stairs leading into her building. It wasn't until she was standing in front of it that she realized she didn't have her keys, not to the building or to the apartment. She had a spare with her neighbor, but that didn't help her to get into her building. For just a moment, she felt overwhelmed, frustrated to the point of tears. Swallowing it back, she blinked her eyes closed, took in a deep breath, and walked over to the panel on the side, dressed in tenant's names. She pressed the button to her neighbor, old Miss Craigflower, and asked her if she could please let her in. She'd lost her keys and would need the ones she had as well to get inside her apartment.
"Oh, of course dear, of course," Miss Craigflower said.
The door buzzed and Felicity pulled it open, wincing as her shoulder twinged. She had pain medication for that, but sometimes she liked it, accepting the pain as penance for living when Oliver didn't. When Digg, Sara, and Roy had all died.
She took the elevator to her floor and offered Miss Craigflower a tired smile as she prattled on about how often she lost her own keys and could understood Felicity's predicament. She gave Felicity back her spare key and patted her on the shoulder, telling her to get some sleep, she looked like the living dead. And then she shuffled off to her apartment and Felicity made her way inside her own, closing the door behind her with a thud.
It felt wrong, being there when he wasn't. It had felt wrong since she woke up and didn't have him there beside her. She kept reaching out to her side, searching for his hand, and coming up with air.
She dropped her spare key into the little bowl on the table, where her and Oliver's keys used to rest together at the end of the day. She kicked off her shoes, a pair of flats Thea had brought her, though she'd yet to see her since waking. She imagined Thea had other things on her mind, others to be with, her mother namely. Truthfully, Felicity wasn't sure she could bear to sit down with Thea and explain what had happened, to spin some tale about how her brother died that wouldn't immediately bring Thea back to the truth.
Felicity made her way through the apartment, feeling, for once, like it was too large for her. She remembered, more times than she could count, Oliver complaining that her apartment was too small, they should get something bigger, a nice condo or a penthouse with a view. Her rebuttal was that it was home and it was cozy and it only seemed small because he was so big, and he would laugh and kiss her and tell her he'd live in the gutter as long as she lived with him.
Tears bit at her eyes as she closed them.
"3… 2… 1," she whispered to herself, trying to tamp down on the emotions that swirled inside her with such intensity that she could barely breathe.
Making her way to the bedroom, she unrolled the plastic bag and pulled the contents out. An arrow shaped cartilage bar, a pair of dangly silver earrings, her charm bracelet, her glasses, and, finally, the stiff clothing she'd been wearing, dried with blood. She shoved her clothes back in the bag and tossed it toward the garbage can beside her dresser.
Her jewelry was dirty, some of it with blood, others with soot. She took it all to the bathroom to rinse off, focusing on the task for a long few minutes.
When she returned to her bedroom, she felt lost.
The bed was unmade. Or, at least, Oliver's side was. That was a habit of his.
Sighing, she started undressing from the clothes she'd changed into only an hour ago. She stripped it all away and put them in the laundry hamper alongside her and Oliver's clothes from earlier in the week before she made her way back to her bathroom for a shower. She turned the handles to as hot as they would go, nearly scalding her skin as she stood under the steady beat of the water hammering at her back. She scrubbed away the smell of hospital, using the frilly yellow loofah that Oliver always told her was bright enough to burn his retinas, though that never stopped him from plucking it up to clean her back when they showered together.
The shower seemed so big and empty without him.
When the water began to cool down, she finally shut it off and climbed out. Mechanically, she brushed her teeth and combed her hair before toweling herself off and making her way back to her bedroom.
Standing in front of her closet, she pulled out one of Oliver's dress shirts and wrapped herself in it, buttoning the front and moving to her dresser to grab out a pair of wool socks.
"Your feet are like ice," he always told her, flinching when her toes rubbed up against his calves.
Blinking back tears, she walked to her bed, climbing in on her side and reaching across to where the covers were messy, the blanket half tossed over to her side. She rested her hand there, where he used to lay, and closed her eyes.
She turned her head down to her pillow as she began to cry and fell asleep just like that. For two days, she wandered in and out of sleep, stumbling off to use the bathroom here or there before returning to her previous place on her bed. Sometimes she would dream that Slade came for her, that he slipped in through the window like Oliver always feared, and plunged one or both of his swords through her heart. The pain of it would hurt less than how she felt now. But he didn't. So she was left there to fall apart, reaching for someone who wasn't, and would never be, there.
On the third day, she got out of bed.
She showered and ate something and dressed in a black sheath dress and the blandest of her flats. She tied her hair back in a ponytail and didn't bother with make-up or jewelry. When she was finished getting ready, she called for a cab and gave the driver directions to Queen Manor. While the mob of paparazzi and news outlets were not allowed permission to enter the property, clustering outside the gates, security waved her through, recognizing her immediately. Felicity gave little mind to the flashbulbs going off as they caught sight of her arrival. She didn't answer the questions being shouted at her through the closed taxi window. They were aware of who she was, though she was sure they didn't know she was there the night that Oliver died. It seemed the only detail never mentioned on the news during her stay in the hospital, when she'd torturously watched every bit of media coverage they had on what had happened.
The taxi stopped in front of Queen Manor and one of the staff hurried to get the door open for her. Felicity paid the driver and climbed out, steadied by the staff's hand under her elbow. She was expecting Raisa, but found Orlando instead, one of the security guards that had been recommended by John.
"They haven't started yet. Everyone is in the parlour," he informed her.
She nodded, but instead of moving inside, she asked, "Has Detective Lance arrived yet?"
He shook his head. "I don't think so. I know Miss Queen is hiding in the kitchen."
"Thank you."
She hesitated for a moment. Did she go to Thea or wait for Lance?
Eventually, Felicity found herself wandering around the grounds instead, making her way around the back, to where she knew the funeral would be held. They already had a headstone for him, why waste it?
Was his casket here? She wondered. Had they buried him early or was was Oliver just sitting in wait while the guests ate hors d' oeuvres and talked about what little they knew of Oliver Queen? Because his best friends, the closest people in his life, the people that really knew him, most of them were dead, and the remaining few she could count on one hand. Though she hesitated to call Lance a friend of his, or maybe she thought Lance would hesitate in calling himself a friend of Oliver's. Regardless, he was the only one besides herself that knew Oliver's true identity. The remaining three people that mattered in Oliver's life were in the dark on that particular matter. She wondered if Laurel had come. If she was driven to drinking again. She hadn't seen much of her since Sara's death; she wasn't sure how Laurel had coped with the loss of her sister a second time. And now she was losing someone else she cared about.
Felicity walked silently toward the two graves, the grounds already dressed with wreaths of flowers and a picture of Oliver's grinning face. She was both relieved and saddened to see that it was a fairly recent picture, meaning his smile wasn't that cocky, shit-eating grin he'd once worn for all the paparazzi. This one was genuine; she knew because he was laughing at something John had said, the wrinkles around his eyes showing. A moment captured when the grief and loss of Sara and Roy was beginning to ebb just a little, when he had started to laugh and smile again. It was a week before John died and then those smiles became much rarer.
She walked to the picture, her head tipped to the side, and reached for it, her fingers delicately tracing the arch of his cheeks and the lines around his eyes. God, but he was handsome. Her fingers fell to his smiling lips and she let out a tiny, shuddering sigh.
"Feels like a lie, doesn't it?"
Her head swiveled to find Thea standing a few short feet away.
"She tried to pick a happy picture. Because that's how we like to remember people. Not as who they are but who we want them to be… Or who we wish they still were." Thea wandered closer, hugging her arms around herself, looking small and willowy and like a harsh wind might blow her away at any second. "He didn't smile like that a lot, though. I mean, sometimes you could surprise him, catch him off guard, and he'd slip up and he'd laugh or grin and… just for a second, you'd feel that dark cloud lift. But… It always came back."
Felicity stared at her staring at Oliver's blown up face on a piece of cardboard, waiting by a headstone that had to have the date of his death fixed to fit current circumstances.
"I should probably be polite and ask you how you're doing and coping and all of that empty shit but, I think we both know the answer." Thea's gaze shifted up to meet Felicity's. "You were there with him, you saw it happen. They said you held him while he died, so… I mean, what's the point in asking, right?"
Thea laughed then; a choked, angry, anguished noise lifting from her throat. "I want to be angry at you and ask you why you couldn't save him… Because you did before. You brought him back from that edge, over and over again, and I… I saw him falling apart, I saw him after Sara died and Diggle died and he—he clung to you. You were like, his lifesaver, you know? So part of me is really, really angry because I thought that, whatever happened, you'd bring him back. I know that it's illogical and stupid and you couldn't save him..." She blinked her tears back quickly.
"I mean, I have no idea what happened that night. The club was basically blown up and you were stuck inside and… and Oliver, his phone went off at dinner, and he ran out of the house so quickly that we never got an answer why, and that… that was the last time I saw him. He just… He said he had to go and he kissed my cheek and then we was gone…" She hugged herself tighter, her voice getting thicker. "And the next thing I know, Officer Lance is telling me that my brother is dead and you're in the hospital and I don't… I don't know what to do anymore because it feels like everybody is just always leaving me and dying on me and I… I'm so an-angry."
Felicity didn't have words for her. She didn't have platitudes or excuses or anything. So she reached out and she hugged Thea, gathering her close and wrapping her arms around her tightly. There was no alcohol for them to drown their sorrows in, no stories to share that would make it right; they just clung to one another, holding each other up as the world seemed so eager to knock them down.
It wouldn't be long later that people began to come out to the field, to say goodbye to a man they hardly knew. Felicity let go of Thea so she could stand with her mother, the two Queens standing tall against their loss, raising those chins up high as a man of God spoke of a man who had seen purgatory and survived, only to die in an act of sacrifice.
Felicity stepped back, away from the crowd. She watched with a sort of distorted, disconnected understanding that nearly none of them, none of the people crying into their handkerchiefs or grieving for Oliver, had any idea who he truly was underneath that smile plastered for them to see. She watched as they laid flowers at his grave and paused to say farewell to his picture before eventually moving on back to the house.
When she was left alone once more, she walked back to the grave and knelt in the damp grass, tracing the letter of his name with the tip of her finger. And the pain, the loss, the agony that had been swamping her for days lifted, replaced with a numb, detached acceptance of what had to be done.
When Felicity rose, she was a different person.
She had a mission.
When she walked away with the face of a grinning Oliver at her back, she felt nothing but vengeance burning in her heart.
She wondered, briefly, if this was what Slade felt. If this was what had consumed him to the point that he had wanted nothing more than to destroy Oliver and everyone he loved.
She looked up as she passed the parlour and found Thea staring at her from the window. Whether the younger woman knew what she was going to do or had any idea of the change that had occurred, Felicity didn't know. But Thea raised her hand up and pressed it to the glass. Felicity wasn't sure if she was reaching out or waving, but Felicity lifted her hand in answer.
To her, it was goodbye.
Finding Nyssa hadn't been easy.
She supposed it wasn't meant to be, her being an assassin and all.
But find her, Felicity did.
Or, well, maybe Nyssa found her.
"I was prepared to give you leniency for all of your searching, but this… is unacceptable."
Felicity whirled around, gripping a gun John had given her in her hand as she stared down the beautiful, poised woman who stood, an eyebrow raised, giving Felicity a cursive, dismissive look-over.
"I will commend you for your skills, though. There are few that could have come this far, or this close, and lived to tell the tale."
Felicity pursed her lips. "We have… We had a common friend, once."
"Friend." Nyssa gave a faint scoff. "I have none of those."
Felicity nearly reconsidered for a moment, but then said, "Sara. Sara Lance. She was… She mattered to you. Once."
For an assassin who had likely spent a great deal of time learning how to hide her true emotions, Nyssa did not hide her flinch in that moment. She inhaled deeply through her nose and then narrowed her eyes at Felicity. "You have ten seconds to convince me why I shouldn't slit your pretty throat right here."
"I know who killed her. And I want you to teach me how to kill him."
A second passed, and then another, and Nyssa finally took a step closer. Just as Felicity though perhaps she'd made an error in judgement and Nyssa would kill her long before she'd have a chance to get anywhere close to Slade, the dragging noise of a chair being pulled across the floor snapped her to attention.
Nyssa took a seat, her hands braced on her knees, her back impossibly straight, and said, "Go on."
"Tell me again why you are doing this," Nyssa said, looking down at Felicity as she lay in a crumpled heap on the ground, sore and beaten and almost completely sure that one of her ribs was bruised, if not broken.
"For Sara."
"No." Nyssa pursed her lips. "Perhaps in part, yes. But tell me who brought you here. Tell me why they matter."
"It is for Sara," she argued, glaring up at her. "And Roy and John and…" Her voice trailed off, her throat burning.
"And?" Nyssa circled her, twisting a dagger in her hands, letting it slip over and under her fingers like it was air, moving with such grace that Felicity was sure it would only ever cut someone Nyssa deemed worthy of it. As if the blade itself had curbed its innate drive to harm in respect of her. "I hear you say his name while you sleep, little one. Why not say it now, in the light of day? Or is the pain so raw that it would break you?" She knelt then, looking at Felicity with knowing eyes. "Do you know what you must do with that pain? Do you understand how it can make you as much and as clearly as it can break you?" She shook her head, a fire lighting her eyes. "Pain is nothing more than a reminder that you can either suffer or make others suffer instead of you."
"That's a bit of a black and white way of seeing it."
"All of us suffer. We can lie and say that it is our duty to feel that pain, but there is not one person alive who would not rather someone feel that burden for them." She held a hand out, waiting for Felicity to take it, and then yanked her from the floor.
Felicity groaned, reaching over to grip her ribs as they protested.
"The kind thing to do would be to let you rest and heal, but if you are to learn how to kill, you must learn how to hurt." Nyssa took Felicity's chin in her hand and raised it so they were eye to eye. "You remind me of her. She was all fire and pain, half dead inside and willing to do anything to survive. But where Sara wanted to survive, you only want to make another suffer. I wonder, do you know what you will do when he is dead. Have you asked yourself that?"
Felicity breathed hard through her gritted teeth. "I'll figure it out later, when he's gone."
Tsking under her breath, Nyssa graced her with as close to a pitying look as the woman had in her. "Vengeance only lasts as long as your enemy lives. When he dies, so does what drives you, and then you are left with nothing." Taking a step back, she said, "Perhaps when you are finished, you will return to me, and I will show you how to live beyond that."
Felicity leaned down and grabbed up a bō staff from the floor, hissing at the pain on her side. She raised it up, letting Nyssa know the conversation was over for now. Truthfully, Felicity had no idea what she would do after Slade was dead. Usually, when she dreamt of what it would be like, it ended with Slade. There was nothing after that. Roll credits. And maybe she didn't want to know. Maybe not knowing was better.
Because maybe there wasn't anything after it. Maybe there was never meant to be.
There was a time when she thought her life could be better. When, even though they had Slade breathing down their necks, she thought she and Oliver had a future. Yes, she got tired of constantly being ready and waiting for the day he would pop up on their radar and spring his trap, but that didn't mean she didn't enjoy the time she did get with Oliver. If anything, sometimes that made it all the more special. Because she knew it could end at any moment, she tried to enjoy it to the fullest while it was happening.
And she knew Oliver felt the same. She knew it like she knew that John died with the certainty that he had done good in the world, he had left a legacy he could be proud of. She knew it like she knew code would never fail her, a faithful friend that had served her well since the first time a computer had been put in front of her. She knew it like she knew the sun would rise every morning, despite how dark the nights often seemed.
Oliver was making breakfast, or, more accurately, burning breakfast, when she found a ring tucked in the sock drawer.
It was an accident; she hadn't gone looking for something like that. But there it was, a blue satin box staring back at her that she'd snooped in because, well, she hated mysteries and her birthday was coming up and she was wondering if he got her those cute koala head earrings she'd been hinting at. But inside, on a bed of satin, was a diamond engagement ring. Logically, she knew she should close the top, stuff it back under the socks, and just let things progress as they should.
Instead, she plucked that ring up from the box and walked out into the kitchen in a daze.
Oliver was frowning down at the frying pan in front of him, his sweatpants slung low on his hips, shirt missing, feet bare, hair in disarray and his face scruffy. If she hadn't been completely distracted, she would've been wholly turned on. Which was a pretty regular thing for her around him anyway.
"So I burned the first batch of French toast, but I think my second batch might survive," he told her, spatula in hand while he raised a cup of coffee up to his mouth. "If not, I'm thinking scrambled eggs. Sound good?" When she didn't answer right away, he frowned, turning to look at her. "Felic—" He paused, spotting the ring she held up. "You… Where'd you get that?"
"Where did I…" She blinked rapidly. "Oliver, you didn't exactly hide it in Mount Doom. It was in the sock drawer. The sock drawer that we share. Literally, I found it stuffed under a pair of my favorite wool socks and those weirdly silky socks you like to wear so much. My feet were cold, so, you know, logical step, wool socks. And the next thing I know, blue satin box, and then this. This right here. Which looks a lot like an engagement ring, I'd like to point out." She pointed at it with her free hand before making a weird, frantic motion with it.
Oliver stared at her, mouth slightly ajar.
"Say something!" she told him. "Something along the lines of 'why yes, Felicity, that is an engagement ring, let me explain.' And then, explain."
Pursing his lips at her, he sighed. "I'm pretty sure it's self-explanatory."
Her eyes widened. "No!" She wagged her finger at him. "No, it is not self-explanatory. It is you-need-to-explain-why-I-just-found-an-engagement-ring-in-the-sock-drawer is what it is. Because, let's face it, we are basically waiting for Slade Wilson to bust in the window or door at any given moment and kill one or both of us. I don't know about you, but getting married doesn't seem like the next logical step. I mean, have I thought about it? Yes, of course! Probably before we even got together, which is neither here nor there or anywhere. The point is, getting married right now would be like asking for the Red Wedding. The Rains of Castamere would play as he snipered me from the roof of Queen Manor just before I said 'I do.'"
"So you would say yes, if I asked you?"
Felicity waved her hand around. "Out of everything I just said, that was all you heard?!"
"No. I heard the rest, and I agree. But just so we're on the same page… If I asked you to marry me, you'd say yes. And if we weren't sure Slade was going to kill you to make a spectacle of it and completely send me over the edge, we'd have a wedding at the manor, in the spring, and you'd wear your bubbe's pearls."
"Well, I didn't mention the spring or bubbe's pearls, but those are both true." Sighing, her shoulders slumped. "Do you honestly think I would say no to marrying you? I mean, even knowing what Slade would do, I still can't help but think 'wow, this ring is gorgeous' and 'oh, Felicity Megan Queen has a nice ring to it, and 'yes, I'd totally marry you, even if you always put the milk carton back in the fridge when it's empty, and you never make your side of the bed, and it's really unfair how you always smell prettier than me.' So yes, my first instinct was definitely to shout 'let's do it' but I can't think like that. We can't afford to think like that, not right now."
With a heavy sigh, he nodded, walking toward her with slow, measured steps. "I know."
Frustrated, she shook her head. "If you know, then why…" She waved the ring at him.
He half-smiled and plucked the ring from her fingers. "Felicity, I've had this ring for seven months."
Her heart thumped hard in her chest.
"But I know I can't give it to you until this thing with Slade is over. I know that our lives are basically on hold until this ends. So we can live here, safe in this little bubble of ours, pretending that things aren't as bad as they really are. But while I want us to move forward, I want to ask you to marry me and put this ring on your finger, I know that's impossible right now. So I've kept it put away, until the day comes that we don't have to worry about snipers on the roof or bombs hidden on the jet as we leave for our honeymoon or assassinations of any kind…" He frowned, staring down at the ring with a thoughtful look on his face. "When I bought this ring, it was a promise to myself that we could have that. That one day, this thing would Slade would end, and we could have a real life together; a future… The thing is, I don't know when that'll be. I don't know if it'll be tomorrow or next year or ten years from now. But I do know that I want it with you. I know that, whatever happens, you're it for me. And I know it's difficult to live like this. I know I'm asking a lot of you and that, by being with me, I'm putting you in danger. And that… it terrifies me. It rips me apart that I'm the reason you could die." He swallowed thickly and shook his head. "If I knew that pushing you away would keep you safe, I would. Even though it would destroy me not to have you here, by my side. I would push you as far away as I could. But I know that if I do, he'll find you." His voice gave out for a second before he said, "I won't risk that. I won't risk you."
She stared at him, her heart thudding loud in her ears, and her eyes fell to where that beautiful ring rested between his fingers. "Okay."
He raised an eyebrow. "Okay?"
She nodded. Reaching for his hand, she squeezed her fingers around his. "When he's gone, when it's over, then you can ask, and I'll say yes."
He stared at her a long moment, searching her eyes, and then a faint smile turned up his lips. Slowly, that smile turned into a full-fledged grin, and he chuckled under his breath as he leaned forward to kiss her.
Their moment was short-lived, however, as the fire alarm started blaring.
Oliver's second try at French toast had burned; scrambled eggs it was then.
She wondered sometimes, if he always knew he would end up sacrificing himself, and that buying the engagement ring and the idea of getting married had just been one last desperate grab at hope for another outcome. She knew Oliver. She knew that some part of him had been ready for this. He'd known it might culminate in his or her death. She knew he must've prepared himself for the moment where he might have to sacrifice himself for her, even when she said not to. Just as she knew that he would never want her to carry out this drive for vengeance. He would want her to have some safe, normal life, far away from the death and danger she'd encountered with him. But it was her choice. And she chose revenge.
Felicity spent three years training with Nyssa, and she was a terrible student when she started. She was all arms and legs that did nothing more than trip over each other. But, for all that she was a merciless assassin, Nyssa had patience, and while she might have put Felicity out of her misery if she'd been anyone else, she seemed to respect her for wanting to destroy Slade. Of course, Felicity never told Nyssa who the man was that had killed Sara. Because she knew if she did, her mentor would disappear into the night to get revenge of her own. That didn't stop Nyssa from asking and, if it hadn't been for Felicity's friendship with Sara, she thought Nyssa might have tortured the answer out of her otherwise. But Nyssa allowed her to go on, she trained her to fight, and, perhaps, she even took some comfort in the idea that, while she wouldn't be the one to put Slade down herself, she had trained the person who would, like an extension of her own rage and grief.
Felicity had no idea how much time had truly passed. It was a haze of fighting and ice baths and muscles that didn't have familiar hands to rub away the ache. She missed her training sessions with Oliver. How, when he knew she was feeling particularly tired or bruised up, he would take her feet into his lap and paint her toe nails for her. Or he'd come in as she was relaxing in her bath and have her shuffle forward so that she could dip her head back into the water and wash her hair for her. She missed how he took care of her, how he showed how much he loved her, how he kissed her bruises away and held her a little tighter each night as they went to sleep. Now, she slept alone, fitfully most nights, never quite comfortable when her body felt so achy.
Eventually, though, those aches and pains were fewer and farther between. Her body was molded into something else, something that could withstand pain. Something that moved with grace and anticipated attack. Something focused, driven, and completely aware. When she fought now, she did so silently, with such agility that the old her would have been amazed. When Nyssa brought in others, trained assassins, to fight Felicity, she stood off to the side and watched as Felicity destroyed them. Not with conviction, not with anger or desperation. She put them down because when they attacked, it was her instinct to attack back, to be better, to prevail.
She didn't kill them, though. No matter how many times Nyssa told her that if the assassins that faced her failed to win, they deserved to die. The only blood her hands would wear would be Slade Wilson's. It was a vow she'd made that day she knelt at Oliver's grave, and it was a vow she would keep.
The day she left Nyssa's company, with all the skills she would ever have, all the knowledge and certainty that if there was any chance she could kill Slade, she now had it, she did not hug the woman who had trained her. She did not thank her or cry or tell her that she would miss her now that the likelihood of them ever seeing each other again was slim to none. Instead, she hitched the bag of what few belongings she had up on her shoulder, and she told her, "His name was Oliver."
And Nyssa looked at her with a faint smile and said, "I know."
Swallowing tightly, she admitted, "He died saving me."
"And now you kill to honor him." Nyssa stared at her searchingly for a moment. "Would he want that for you?"
Felicity fingered the strap of her bag and answered honestly, "No. But he's not here to stop me."
Nyssa reached for her, fingers tucked under Felicity's chin, and then she leaned forward and she pressed a soft, farewell kiss to her forehead. "Go with honor, little one."
Felicity nodded and turned on her heel to walk away, her head held high. When she killed Slade, she would find a way to thank Nyssa for all that she'd given her.
For the next six months, she did nothing but search for Slade. She tracked him all over the world, showing up some places just days after he'd left to somewhere else. She caught a few hours of sleep here or there while researching and chasing what few trails he'd left behind in each place he'd been. It was exhausting, but it was necessary.
Some days she looked in the mirror and didn't recognize herself. She didn't recognize the glint in her eyes that demanded blood or the graceful way she walked that looked as lethal as a panther out for a kill. She was Death and she had only one target. She was not the woman Oliver had fallen in love with or Digg had befriended. She wasn't Sara's drinking buddy or Roy's mother hen. She wasn't an IT girl or an executive assistant. She wasn't anything but vengeance and sorrow and a part of her wore those like a badge of honor. This was what he had created, and when he met his end, he would know that.
But there were times when something else would bleed through, something desperately untouched by her hatred driven lust for revenge.
Some nights, she fell asleep convinced that Oliver was still holding her, still wrapped around her, face buried in her hair or her neck, mouthing kisses over her skin and whispering his 'I love you's' into her ear. She woke up each morning and kept her eyes closed to let her dream linger. She could almost smell him and feel him and hear his steady breathing beside her. But then her eyes would creep open and there would be no one and nothing there. So she would shove herself up out of bed and push her body toward exhaustion, training and fighting and searching.
A little over six months later, she found Slade in Belgium, sitting in an opulent office with a stunning view of Brussels. The dark paneled walls were dressed in old, oil paintings, the likes of which only the wealthy could afford to buy. His room was furnished with a pair of leather sofas, side tables corner either of them, a minibar, some plants, and an expensive looking rug. It wasn't the sleek, modern, windows and steel of Oliver's office, but it seemed to suit Slade much better.
He was at his desk, hand poised over a paper as he signed something or other. When she stepped up behind him, she was silent.
"Like the wind," Nyssa told her, moving through the room, dressed so darkly she could see absolutely nothing. Nyssa moved so quickly and so silently that Felicity had never been able to pin down where she was, twisting her head in every direction, her voice seeming to come from every corner. "When you strike, he can never know it is coming. He must think he is safe, and when he believes it so, then you will show him he never was."
A sword in either hand, she laid them over his shoulder, crossed at the nape of his neck.
"It's been too long," she greeted.
He went still, his shoulders tensed, and then he raised his head. "Not as long as I had hoped, I'll admit."
"Did you think I'd just forget? Move on? Wait for you to come for me again?"
"No," he said simply, turning his head a little so he could see her. "I was wrong, Miss Smoak. You weren't Shado at all... You were me."
Her eyes narrowed. "Do you want pity now? Because I know what it feels like." She searched his face, defined planes that might have been handsome if not for the cruelty she knew him for. "You think I'll sympathize because now that I know what it's like to miss someone so desperately… To blame yourself for their death." Her voice shook, but she told herself it was with rage and not the torment of knowing that it was true. It was her fault. Oliver was gone because of her.
"No. No sympathy," he said, laying his pen down. "I had none for you, so I expect the same in return."
"It'd be easy, you know, to take your head like this… An homage, right? To Roy this time."
"It would. But you won't."
"Won't I?" She scoffed. "I'm not the same person you left to die in that club. I'm not the same woman that buried three friends."
"No. I can see that you aren't. But killing me like that… it wouldn't fit with the dream, would it?"
She frowned at him.
"Don't play dumb. It doesn't suit you." He turned in his chair so he was facing her better, the cross of her swords sitting at his Adam's apple now. "You'll offer me a sword like I did you, only his time you'll know how to fight with one. This time you won't fall and Oliver won't swoop in to save you. This time you plan to win, not just escape."
She glared, because yes, fine, that was exactly what she'd dreamt of when she planned this. A redo, of sorts. Only it wasn't, not really. Nothing was going to bring them back. Nothing was going to take her back to that moment before Oliver interfered and laid down his life for hers. Nothing was going to make any of this better.
"I was going to let him live, you know."
Felicity raised an eyebrow and let out a scoff.
"Imagine it." He leaned back in his chair, hands stacked atop his stomach. "He would have to live with all that loss. He would have to live feeling the way you do now." He searched her eyes. "Do you know why I wanted to hurt him?"
"Shado," she answered simply.
"Oh, I blame him for her, absolutely. If he had only made the right choice, she would still be here, still be alive."
"You don't know that. That island wasn't called Purgatory for nothing. She could have died at any point."
"Maybe. But do you know what made it so much worse…?" His face clouded with anger. "He lied to me. After everything, after all I did to keep that boy alive, he let her die and he told me he had nothing to do with it. And then, he tried to kill me. Oh, he can spin it any way he likes. That I was insane. That the mirakuru made me a mindless killer. But the truth is, he was no more loyal to me than he was anyone else. He manipulated who he had to in order to survive. And maybe I should appreciate that. I'm a solder, after all. I know the things a man has to do in war to stay alive. But for a time, Oliver was my brother. We had only each other to rely on, stuck on that godforsaken island." He gritted his teeth then. "He made his choice and it wasn't me or Shado. He was still the same selfish boy who washed up and he always would be."
"You're wrong." Felicity shook her head, her hair swishing at her back. "While you're still stuck on that island, carrying the weight of every death, using Shado as an excuse to kill anybody who gets in your way, Oliver changed. He grew up and he became something so much better. He became hope and honor and loyalty. So, maybe you knew somebody else and maybe he made mistakes, maybe he broke your heart, but that doesn't make what you did any better."
"So that's it then?" He grinned at her. "You've washed away his sins and now you plan to kill his killer?"
"He died with his sins. He'll never let them go. Guilt was his favorite companion. But I will kill you." She took a step back then and circled around to the center of his office.
Slade stood from his chair, undoing the buttons of his jacket and stripping it back before he rolled his shoulders and undid the collar of his shirt for easier movement. As he circled his desk, he held a hand out. "A sword, Miss Smoak. If you please."
She tossed one toward him, and in the same moment that he raised his hand to grab it from the air, she attacked. Leaping forward, she turned mid-air and swung her sword down in a powerful arc. The hand he had outstretched suddenly lost four fingers and the sword fell to the ground at his feet. She landed in a crouch and stood, twisting her own sword around, spraying blood across his carpet.
Hissing as he held his bleeding hand to his chest, he cast a shocked eye toward her.
"Someone once told me to always keep the advantage." Her eyebrow ticked up. "Brawn versus brain. I wrote a paper on this once in high school. Who do you think won out in the end?" She cocked her head at him curiously. "I'm pretty sure those won't grow back, by the way."
Slade grinned then and dropped his hand, letting blood seep down to the floor at his feet. "What's a few fingers, huh?"
Getting into position, Felicity raised the sword up over her head. "I think those are the same you choked me with, so I can't say I miss them much either."
"I'm going to enjoy it when I end you," he growled.
Felicity didn't bother with a reply; instead, she attacked.
She was used to how her body became a weapon now. Sometimes it reacted before her brain caught up to tell her what she was going to do. So when he swiped an arm at her and she flipped herself out of the way, it registered after the fact. When his lunging body chased her, picking up furniture to toss in her direction, tearing out a lamp cord to try and wrap it around her neck to choke her, she kept on the move. Always one step ahead, one move in front of him, anticipating each swipe, each lunge, each attack, she parried them all away and stayed just out of reach.
"Use his rage against him," Nyssa directed. "Poke the fire until it roars. Let it consume him. And when he is nothing more than a mindless machine, no more than a brute out for blood, that is when you strike. Men, so predictable. He will let his hatred guide him. His anger will be his folly, not his tool. Let him scream and break things. Let him have his tantrum. It will only serve to make him weak. He will think he is stronger, faster, but he is nothing more than an animal. You will be superior. You will keep your head. When he is nothing more than a bull chasing red, you will lead him into your trap."
The man with the plan began to fade, and in his place was the enraged soldier that lived on that island, deranged and desperate. He chased her, reaching and snarling and desperate to destroy. But he never caught her. She mocked him from how close and yet so far she was. She leapt atop his desk, jumping a few feet in the air as he thrust an arm out to get at her legs. As she came back down, she kicked him in the face, satisfied when blood sprayed from his mouth, his head jarred to one side. She leapt over him, flipping mid-air and rolling back to her feet.
Turning to face him once more, she attacked him from behind, landing blow after blow to his back, knocking him forward until he fell to his knees and stumbled his way back up, turning back to engage her again. It was a dance, of sorts. He reached and she ducked, he swiped and she leaned, he punched and attacked and she moved just out of hitting range. For all that he was a large man, he was still graceful, still a soldier, and she had to put every bit of her training to the test. But she got in a few hits, punching him so hard that his nose shattered on impact, even if it did heal all too quickly, and knocking his knees out from beneath him so he landed flat on his back, to name a few. She knew, however, that she would tire long before him, so it was time to stop playing cat and mouse and end it.
He grabbed a lamp, ripping it violently from the wall, the cord whipping around to lash him across his own cheek, and he threw it at her, catching her in the shoulder, the same that he had stabbed three and a half years earlier. She let out a cry of pain and tripped back a step, letting him think he had injured her more than he had. His savage smile told her he was feeling good now, as if he had a bit of an advantage. He came at her again, lunging and swiping. She knew she couldn't let him actually hit her; he was too strong for it not to do serious damage. But she did move a little slower, letting worry cloud her face versus the stoic resolve she'd worn before.
Finally, when he was certain he had her cornered up against the wall, she struck. When he ran forward, she slammed her foot down on the hilt of the sword she'd offered him earlier. She kicked it forward and watched as the momentum from his running and the force of her kick lodged the sword right through his upper stomach, between his ribs and out the other side of him.
For Oliver.
His mouth fell open in shock and his feet tripped over themselves.
Without pause, she gave a war cry and lunged, plunging the sword in hand directly through his chest, just as she pulled the other one free of his gut.
Slade fell to his knees in front of her, blood dripping from his lips, and she raised her sword up as one of her hands gripped the hair atop his head to hold him steady.
But he laughed, his pearly white teeth dripping in blood. "I've won," he told her. "You, standing here, are proof of that."
Felicity paused.
"Do you think he'd still love you? Seeing you here, poised to kill. His light. His pure, unsullied, saving grace." He sneered up at her. "I win, he loses, and you… you have to go on living. At least I will see her again."
"When you do, ask her if she forgives you for every life you took in her honor. I think you'll be surprised with her answer."
His brow furrowed, a retort on his lips, but Felicity didn't want to hear it.
"Just so we're clear…" she added, "You lose. I win. Game over."
With enviable precision, she swung the killing blow, relieving Slade's head from his shoulders, and dropped it unceremoniously to the floor, staring for a moment as it bounced, rolling to the side, blood seeping into the carpet.
For Roy.
Leaning down, she pulled up her pant leg and retrieved her gun from her ankle. She took aim at the slackened face before and shot once, twice, centered on his forehead.
For Sara. For John.
Finally, she plunged the remaining sword deep into his shoulder.
For her.
It was finished. It was done. Slade was finally dead.
The room was left silent; the abrasively loud commotion of their fight had dwindled down to little more than a buzzing in her ears.
She expected to feel something more. Overwhelming relief, she supposed. But instead, there was just a hollow ache there.
Now, she had no one to chase, no one to make pay for her agony and loss. Nyssa's words suddenly echoed back to her.
What did she have? She wondered.
Because it felt like a lot like nothing…
Nyssa smiled when she received the box with Slade Wilson's eye patch inside it and a note that said simply, With honor, -F
She laughed good and long, and then, finally, she let herself cry. For her heart, for Sara, for a love she missed dearly.
A week later, Felicity received a coded email from Nyssa, asking her to pledge allegiance to her, to stand at her side and be a partner of another sort, to become the assassin Nyssa knew she could be.
She politely declined.
Nyssa, although disappointed, accepted her answer, but made sure she knew that it was always open. If Felicity ever wanted a new home, a different home, Nyssa would gladly provide it.
After nearly four years away, Felicity returned to Starling City to find it looked both familiar and foreign.
Verdant had been rebuilt, returned to its former glory and continuing on in the same grand fashion it had before. Felicity made the trek over with a heavy heart.
She found Thea at the bar, going over the books, her head bent, and reading glasses perched on her nose.
"This place looks just like I remember it when it first opened," Felicity called out in greeting. "Talk about a nostalgia rush."
Thea went still, slowly lifting her head, and turned in her seat to finally set eyes on her. She stared at her searchingly, hesitantly, as if she thought she was looking at a ghost.
"You're back," she said, flatly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Do I want to know where you've been?"
"Probably not." Felicity walked toward her slowly, a weird sort of nervousness filling her that she hadn't felt in so long. "Weird question, but is the basement fixed up too, or only the upper levels?"
Thea tipped her head, staring at her curiously. "You mean the basement that had a suspiciously powerful computer set-up and an insane amount of arrows, bows, guns, and bullets in supply? That basement."
Whoops, so in the insanity of everything, she'd kind of forgotten to take care of the Arrow cave when she'd gone on her little vendetta. And, apparently, Lance hadn't been able to keep it from Thea. Then again, maybe it was time she knew.
"Plus the medical equipment. Although, last I checked, we definitely needed a new set of paddles for the defibrillator." Felicity shrugged. "Old wiring, comes loose sometimes."
Thea pursed her lips. "He was the Arrow, wasn't he? This whole time. My own brother…" her voice caught. She shook her head and she swallowed back the pain of her newfound knowledge, replacing it with anger. "He was the one who shot Roy. The one who got Roy killed."
"Hey!" she snapped, stepping forward, a finger raised. "Slade Wilson killed Roy. I watched it first-hand. Your brother did everything in his power to keep Roy safe. He wasn't… He wasn't supposed to be there." She waved her hands. "That's not the point. The point is that yes, your brother was the vigilante. Oliver… He was different after the island. He had a mission. He… He needed to do this and I know it's confusing and probably really hard for you to accept, but… I'll tell you everything, if that's what you want. I'll tell you how he died that night. How hard he fought to keep this city safe. How—How desperately he just wanted you to be okay. Anything you want, Thea. Just ask me and I'll tell you."
She stared at Felicity for a long moment, looking unsure, looking angry and exhausted and not a little sad. "Slade Wilson killed Oliver."
It wasn't a question, not really, but she answered it. "Yes. And Roy and Sara and John Diggle."
"And he…"
"He's dead now." Felicity stood a little taller then, her chin raised, not in pride, no, but as a shield, as a point of holding herself up when she felt like what she did was not completely something honorable.
"H-How? Did you…?" Thea shook her head. "I mean, no offense, but you've always been my brother's kind of geeky girlfriend. You tripped over your feet almost as much as you tripped over your own tongue. So, how did you…? How could you possibly…?"
Felicity nodded. "I found someone I knew could train me and I made sure that when I found him, I'd win." She stared at Thea seriously. "I know it's not much. It doesn't bring him back. I… I wish I could. I…" Her lips trembled. "I miss him every day."
Thea blinked back tears. "Me too," she whispered.
Felicity wanted to reach for her, to hug her like she had after those meetings they used to go to, but it felt wrong now. She wasn't who she used to be. She was someone else, someone darker, someone devoid of the light she'd once had, the kind of light that might offer comfort to Thea.
"Will you tell me about him?" Thea wondered.
Felicity's brows furrowed.
"Not— Not about how he died. I don't… think I want to know. But… Who he was, with you. The Oliver that wasn't pretending to be who he used to be. The real Oliver. The one you knew."
"He was real with you too, Thea. I know it didn't always feel that way. But he tried to be what you needed. He just wanted to keep you safe."
She nodded. "I know. I mean, it's stupid and completely misogynistic of him, but… I know." She shrugged. "I just… I want to know him the way you did. I—I want to know all of him. The Arrow side too, so… Tell me about him. Please."
Felicity swallowed tightly. "Okay. I can do that."
Together, they walked to the bar, and Felicity started from the beginning. Not Oliver's, not exactly, but her beginning with him. From his lame stories about spilling a latte on his bullet-riddled laptop. She told Thea as much as she could, leaving out the more intimate parts of their relationship. Sometimes they laughed, sometimes they rolled their eyes, and sometimes they cried. They talked for hours, until stories about Arrow became stories about Oliver and Ollie, a brother and a friend and a man with a good heart.
And when they were finished, Thea poured them each a drink, knocked her glass against Felicity's and said, "We deserve this."
It wasn't shots with Sara, but it was close.
Thea thanked her afterwards, hugging her like she was still a whole, good person, and then she packed up her things and left for home, calling a driver when Felicity insisted that even one drink was too much.
When she was gone, Felicity made her way downstairs to the renovated foundry. Her computers had been replaced with new ones, but Oliver's bows and arrows were the same as they'd been and Digg's guns were safely put away in a rebuilt cabinet. The medical supplies was still there and the salmon ladder stood tall. She looked around and knew that there was a lot of work to do. She would have to rebuild her set-up, reinsert herself into the crime pipeline that was the underworld of Starling City, and figure out if handling Oliver's bows were as familiar to her as the ones Nyssa had her practice with.
It wasn't going to be easy, and, despite being a whole new foundry, familiar ghosts still lingered, but… it was a start.
Weeks later, standing atop a ledge in leather, wearing a mask, and donning a hood with far too much symbolism, Felicity looked out on the city, a bow hanging from her fingers.
"Is this who you are now then?" Lance asked her, standing behind her on the roof of his building, hands on his hips. "You take off for four years, kill Slade Wilson in Belgium, and now what? You show back up here to take on the big green mantle?"
She turned to face him. "Now I do what we were always doing. Fight the corrupt, save the innocent, serve out justice. It's a tried and true tale, don't you think? Maybe over-sung, but still important."
"You're not a killer." His shifted his feet, looking antsy. "Or you weren't, before all this."
"What's the difference between a killer and a hero?" She raised an eyebrow. "I used to ask myself that a lot. What made him different? What made what he did okay? Sometimes I lied to myself and sometimes I didn't. The truth is, Oliver was both. He killed to survive and then he killed because he believed those people deserved death. Was he wrong? Sure. Sometimes. But that's the difficult part, isn't it? We're not supposed to play judge and jury. Or, well, you're not. After all, you've got a badge and a pledge to uphold the law, which is pretty strict about that whole killing thing… Me, though, I wear the hood now. I think it casts a bit of a morally grey shade to everything, don't you?"
He shook his head, lips pursed in that fatherly, disapproving way of his. "It shouldn't. Some things are black and white."
"Maybe they are, or maybe we wish they were." She shrugged. "Here's what I know, you have a problem in the Glades, a problem that can't always be solved with an arrest warrant. So I'm going to do you a favor. I'm going to watch over this city and I'll do what I can to keep it safe. I might not be as strong or as fast as Oliver, but I'm stronger and faster than your police force. And I'll do what I have to, even when it doesn't fit into those black and white boxes."
Lance stared at her a long moment, his brow furrowed. "I can't let you kill."
"I don't expect you to. As far as I'm concerned, Slade Wilson was my one and only victim. But things happen and sometimes people surprise you. I won't go looking to kill anybody, but if it happens, I won't be surprised to hear you knocking on my door." She half-smiled. "It might be good, to have a Jiminy Cricket around to keep me in line… I've seen what it does to people when they don't have one, and I don't want to become that."
He sighed, long and heavy. "It's a lot to take on. Heavy burden for one person's shoulders… You sure you can handle that?"
She tipped her head and smiled faintly. "Who said I was alone?"
With that, she fell back over the edge, cutting through the air so swiftly that she could almost convince herself she was flying. And then she wrapped her fingers around the zipline and swung herself back to safety. She'd by lying if she said she didn't, occasionally, think about not grabbing onto that lifeline some days. The grief was still deep, it still bled when she let her mind wander to Oliver or John, Sara or Roy. And maybe she would never truly heal, maybe there would always be that huge, gaping hole where her heart should be. She didn't know. But this was her trying to mend it even just a little bit.
She made her way back to Verdant and went in through the back, unstrapping her bow from her back and flipping her hood off.
"I don't want to point fingers, but somebody got a little melodramatic on a rooftop tonight," Thea said as she spun the chair to face Felicity, an eyebrow raised. "Maybe we should cut back on the speeches, huh?"
"I don't know. They were a favorite of Oliver's."
"Yeah, well, he was a little overdramatic, too." Pushing up from her chair, Thea walked toward her. "So? You think he'll help you?"
"Lance?" She nodded. "I just need to prove to him that I'm worth helping. That I'm not going to go on a killing spree the first chance I get."
Crossing her arms over her chest, Thea nodded. "Speaking of, when exactly are you going to start training me for something other than tech support?"
"Don't knock it," Felicity warned. "That seat holds a lot of meaning, and for good reason."
Rolling her eyes, Thea held her hands up in surrender. "Not complaining about my current role, just hoping I'll get a chance to kick a little bad guy ass. So? A general time frame, maybe."
Felicity gave a short nod. "Sure. We'll start with slapping water and see where that gets you." With a grin, she walked off to shower.
"Slapping what?" she heard Thea mutter behind her.
She wondered how pissed Oliver would be that she brought Thea into the fold.
But, the dead don't speak.
She missed his voice enough that just hearing him yell at her would be a blessing.
Felicity lasted much longer than she expected.
Long enough to train Thea to become 'Speedy,' her sidekick in some respects, but her partner in most. They held each other up when the grief seemed to swamp them, they guarded each other's backs when the enemy got close, and they stood against adversity when everyone seemed to bend to it.
But, as all stories do, Felicity's eventually found its end.
She didn't die on the battlefield, she made it home first.
The foundry was where she spent most of her time. There was a makeshift room in the back that she put to good use. Her apartment had been there when she returned, courtesy of Thea, though she thought it was probably in an effort to preserve as much of Oliver's stuff as she could rather than because she expected Felicity to come back. Still, Felicity couldn't stay there, and her life revolved so much around being Green Arrow that she didn't see the point in separating anything anymore. Oh, she worked, freelance tech work when she needed money, but, for the most part, she lived in the foundry. Oliver had left her his trust find in his will, but Felicity rarely used it. Her freelance work paid for the electricity she burned up downstairs, making sure Thea didn't have to foot the bill, and bought her what food she needed. But there wasn't much more in terms of expenses.
Felicity could admit, when drunk on tequila and only in the presence of Thea, that her life had spiralled out of control some time ago and was now far too focused on crime fighting and not enough on actually living. It was hard, though. The only real loss she'd known before her team was when her father had walked out on her. Her mother was no peach, keeping her distance from Felicity after her husband packed up and left, as if waiting for the day her daughter too would abandon her. Sometimes Felicity wondered if her mother even noticed her nearly four year absence from the world. But comparing the voluntary disappearance of her father to the loss of her team was like comparing apples and oranges, both fruit, most generally round, but still very different.
When Roy had died, it had hurt. He was a friend and a teammate and he hadn't deserved to die like that. There was still so much life left in him, so much more he could have done, so much he deserved to do and see and have.
When Sara had been killed, that hurt became an ache. It burrowed under her heart and squeezed every time she felt the distinct lack of her fellow female in the lair. She missed having a girlfriend, having someone who understood, having a buddy she could get drinks with and talk honestly to about life alongside Oliver Queen.
When she lost John, she lost a part of herself. She lost the friend that held her up on her worst days and the confidant who told her she was more than she knew. She lost the voice in her ear and the hand steadying her in a world that always seemed a little uneven where her mouth was unfiltered. He was her rock. He was her best friend. And when she lost him, she lost one very strong tether to what she saw as good and right in the world.
When Oliver died in her arms, her heart leaked out of her chest and painted itself in the hollow smile that stared back at her. She had loved before, but never like that. Loss might have brought them together, finally, but it was love that bound them. There were mornings that she woke and she looked at him and she believed the world could be better. Nights when hearing his heart under her ear was like a promise that they would be okay, they would survive, they would triumph. And holding his hand, feelings his fingers tangle with hers, she knew she was home. Sometimes she wondered what it might have been like if Oliver had won. If Slade had died that night at the club, as it crumbled all around them. If she had been able to kill him with that sword he gave her, so certain that she would never be able to truly win against him. Would they have found peace eventually? Would they have gotten married like they wanted to? Would they have had beautiful blond babies with her brains and his courage? Would they have stood, as partners, against everything and everyone that stepped up to fill Slade Wilson's hollow shoes?
She thought they would.
She hoped so.
All she really knew was that five years after avenging her team and building a new one with Thea and a driven Laurel Lance taking on the mantle of her fallen sister, Felicity still loved him with every breath left in her body.
Laurel got her back to the foundry and laid her out on the steel table she'd become all too familiar with over the years.
Delirious from blood loss and the pain, Felicity looked up at Thea's concerned face and swore she saw John for a moment, pulling on a pair of latex gloves before he got started. When she turned her head, her bleary eyes found Laurel, only she was still in her blonde wig, and Felicity blindly reached a hand out. "Sara?"
Laurel took her hand and squeezed, blood squishing between their fingers. "It's Laurel, Felicity. Sara… Sara's gone, remember?"
Tears bit at her eyes, her lips wobbling and she turned her head up to stare at the ceiling. A ceiling that had fallen on her one too many times. A laugh bubbled up in her throat and broke on her lips, blood spraying down her chin.
"She's losing too much. I can't staunch it," Thea exclaimed worriedly. "We need to do something. We need to call someone."
"My dad. I'll get him here. He'll bring her to the hospital," Laurel said, already walking away, her phone out.
Thea leaned over the table, her face coming back into Felicity's view. "Hey," she said softly, squeezing Felicity's shoulder. "It's going to be okay, all right?"
But Felicity could see the tears already clinging to Thea's eyelashes, she could feel as her body began to give up on her. Shaking her head, she said, "You're going to be okay." She reached up, searching for Thea's hand, and finally found it, squeezing tight. "I know you will, Thea. You're strong and smart and you shoot a bow better than I do."
"Don't say that," Thea whispered. "Please, Felicity. Don't die on me. I can't lose you, too. Please."
Tears dribbled down from the corners of her eyes as she smiled. "He'd be so, so proud of you… He'd be pissed too and tell you not to do it, it's too dangerous, blah blah, macho brother crap, but he'd be proud. Of who you are and what you do and how brave you are." Felicity shook her hand and nodded. "I'm proud of you, Thea."
Thea's face crumbled, tears streaking down her cheeks. "I can't do this alone," she cried.
"You're not alone." Her breath hitched. "You've got Laurel and you can call Barry, if you need him…" She blinked, trying to focus as her brain started to fritz out on her. She blinked rapidly. "Hey, you were making connections in Metropolis, right? With that guy who likes blue tights?"
"Superman?" she laughed, rolling her eyes.
"Yeah, him. And Bruce will help you, I know he will."
Thea scoffed. "He only helped out because he had a crush on you. He's usually a raging ass with a serious brooding issue."
Felicity snorted. "Sound familiar?"
Thea shook her head, squeezing her eyes closed. "I miss him. I miss him so much. I don't want to miss you too. I'm so tired of missing people."
"So don't… Don't miss me." Felicity pulled Thea's hand up to her face and pressed her cheek to it. "I'm not sad, okay? I'm not. I'm tired. I've been doing this for a long time. I'm ready."
"I'm not," Thea choked.
"Promise me you'll be okay." Felicity stared up at her searchingly. "Promise me that if anything happens, if you ever think it's too much, you'll get out. Save yourself. Hang up the red suit and do something mundane, like run a nightclub."
Thea gave her a watery smile. "I promise."
Felicity nodded, blinking a few times. "Good." God, she was dizzy and so, so tired.
"Felicity," Thea worried. "Just a little longer, please? Stay with me."
She smiled then. "He used to say that… in the mornings… Stay with me, Felicity. Stay home… He never… never wanted to go to work…" Her hand went limp against Thea's, falling back against the table.
"Felicity… Felicity!"
She stared above, a ringing in her ears, and slowly Thea's face faded from her view.
And then a light. A bright light. And suddenly it wasn't Thea she was looking at, it was Digg, and he was grinning at her.
"Hey," he said, or so his lips read, but she didn't hear him, not at first.
She blinked up at him, her brow furrowed, and turned her head to the left.
A smiling Sara and a smirking Roy greeted her, walking toward her in what seemed like slow-motion.
"Hey, sleepyhead. We thought you'd never wake up," Sara said, her voice coming through a filter, like her ears were water-logged.
"I thought we agreed on Sleeping Beauty?" Roy snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. "Y'know, I think you made us all look bad with that bad-ass chick routine. Nobody's gonna remember me when they've got a hot chick in green leather running around taking out bad guys left, right, and center."
Felicity frowned. What? What was happening?
"Well, I thought the hood looked pretty good on you. But I could be biased. It's not the first time I've seen you in my suit…"
Felicity's heart clenched violently as her head swung to the right to find Oliver grinning down at her. Gently, his hand swept over her forehead, pushing her hair back, before it slid down to cup her cheek. He leaned over her, staring searchingly into her eyes. "Hey…"
Tears burned her eyes, her hand shaking as it raised to cover his. It felt real. It felt warm and heavy on her skin and, God, she could actually smell him. "Oliver?" she choked out.
He leaned down, resting his forehead against hers, and she whimpered, reaching up to drag her fingers through his hair, curving them around his ear, as she sucked in shaky, gasping breaths.
"Shh…" he said soothingly. "Hey, it's okay… I've got you."
Tears leaked out the corners of her eyes and she felt her whole body shake. "Is this a— a fever dream?" she wondered. "Or maybe one of those 'about to die' things where really it's just some chemicals going off in my brain making me think I'm one step closer to heaven."
Oliver drew his head back a little, giving her some space, but he left his hand on her face, his thumb swiping away tears and stroking her cheek.
"You really think any of us were heaven-bound?" Digg scoffed. "Pretty sure the tally we've all racked up says we were headed for the brimstone and fire end of things."
"I'd like to point out that I never actually killed anyone," Roy piped up. "I'm surprisingly the most innocent one here…"
"Innocent isn't the first word I'd use to describe you," Sara dismissed.
"Before those two start bickering…" Digg looked down at her. "What do you think this is?"
Felicity looked around at all of them, at her team, her family, that she'd missed so much, at her best friend who was holding tight to one of her hands, at Oliver, who was staring down at her with that soft, loving look of his, half-smiling as he watched her come to a conclusion.
She turned her head to kiss his palm, just as callused as she remembered it, and let out a soft sigh, before answering simply, "Home."
Thea buried Felicity next to Oliver at the manor, ignoring her mother's protests to the contrary.
Sometimes, when her days were long and trying, she would go and sit between their marble gravestones to vent. She wasn't sure if she believed in heaven or hell or an afterlife or whatever, but she liked to think that they were together. All of them. Roy, Sara, John Diggle, Felicity and Oliver. She wasn't sure and she'd never really have any proof, but she trusted that feeling in her heart that told her maybe they were, somehow. And it could've been a way to sandbag against the grief, it could've been her way of avoiding the harsh reality that too many people she'd loved were gone, but it was better than wallowing in that loss until she was little more than a shell of who she was. She'd seen her brother do that, seen Felicity do the same, and she didn't want to repeat those mistakes.
So, she let herself hope for something more, something happier, and at night, when the city sang with danger and crime, calling out for a hero, she donned her red suit and she went out to meet it. Pausing by the case that commemorated both Arrow and Green Arrow, she would press her fingers to her lips and then to the glass where the infamous green hood lay as a sign of what they stood for, what she wanted to uphold. And together, alongside Laurel, they would fight against the injustice that threatened Starling City.
Wherever her brother was, she hoped he was proud, and she hoped he knew that she loved him and she was proud of him, for both the man he was and the man he became. Maybe in death, he had found his peace and, with it, Felicity.
Seated on a bike as she sped through the Glades, looking for her next adventure, Thea Queen met the world with a free and open heart, gratefully empty of the vengeance and rage that had clouded those of too many before her.
She was the beginning of a new era, and, for that, her brother truly would be proud.
{end.}