burn the world to ash - r - olicity - part 2 [b] of 3
title: light a match, burn the world to ash (I will watch it die, and hold your hand as I fly)
category: arrow
genre: tragedy/romance
ship: felicity/oliver
rating: r
prompt: olicity + revenge + happy ending optional - anonymous (Tumblr)
warning(s):major character death, coarse language, sexual content, explicit violence
word count: 11,149
overall status: complete
summary: When Slade comes for Team Arrow, he is unforgiving in his relentless pursuit for revenge. In the end, however, he shouldn't have underestimated Felicity.
[return]
She liked Thea. Despite the fact that she was so out of the loop that it was ridiculous, Felicity still felt like Thea somehow got her. Maybe it was that mutual acknowledgement that hey, death of a loved one really sucked, and sometimes alcohol and talking helped. She found Thea crying over a bottle of patron on a Thursday night and sat down beside her on the floor, took a drag from the half-empty bottle and said, "You wanna talk or you wanna just cry together?"
That first night, all they did was cry. Thea for Roy and her dad and maybe even her brother, even though he'd come back. Felicity for Roy and Sara and John and, yeah, even Oliver, because he was back but not completely. The island had taken something from him, and every death that followed took a little more. Sometimes she wondered if there'd be nothing left, but then he'd turn to her and he'd say her name and she'd know there was more there than it seemed, it was just carefully wrapped around very specific people. Her, Thea, his mother, despite protests to the contrary. They were all he had left in the world and he would do anything to keep them safe.
That scared her.
So she drank a little more and she grieved a little deeper and she promised herself that, whatever happened, she'd make sure Thea got through it. Somehow.
The second time she found her sitting on the floor, this time with a bottle of Jack, Thea shared a story about her dad (Robert, not Malcolm), and Felicity thought maybe. Maybe she could be friends with Thea. Maybe she wouldn't lose this one. Maybe this could be okay.
Maybe.
Whenever she visited Sara, she brought vodka. She poured them each a shot and then drank Sara's too.
She never really knew what to say, but that had never stopped her from talking before.
Sometimes she talked about boring things, about work at QC or a particular piece of code that had been bothering her, or how her mother had emailed her, exactly six months since the last time she did. Other times she talked about serious things, like how she couldn't find Slade and it was driving her crazy. Her whole job was wielding the internet like it was her own personal scepter, so how could she not work her magic on this? And sometimes, when she was feeling particularly terrible and missing her friend more than ever, she'd pour Sara's shot in the grass and tell her, "You're an idiot. It should've been you who lived."
Sara deserved it more, didn't she? After everything she'd been through.
When she walked back to Oliver after, she wondered if maybe he had better hearing than she thought, because he always seemed to know when she was having one of 'those' days, full of guilt and the certainty that Sara's death was for nothing. He always held her a little tighter, pressing a kiss to her hair and cradling her to his side like he feared she might slip through his fingers, seep out of his arm like air and float up and out of reach. Her fingers twisted around his shirt like maybe she thought she might, too.
The funny thing about grief was that it was always there. She wasn't sure that she would ever get over the loss of her team, not really. They would always cling to her, like a phantom limb, one that ached and stung and reminded her that it was still there, even if she couldn't see it. But there were days when it was manageable. When sometimes she forgot to miss them and she could be happy. As time passed, she smiled more and she laughed and she could cuddle up with Oliver on the couch with a cold bottle of wine and a movie and not feel like somehow she was betraying them.
Some days, she thought maybe life didn't have to stop. It didn't have to become one endless cycle of rage and loss.
As long as Slade stayed off her radar, she could almost believe that life was still moving forward instead of staying in that perpetual state of anticipation.
She knew Oliver felt it, too. She caught him smiling and chuckling, the shadows chased away for a while. He was happy with her, she knew that. As happy as someone could be when they were waiting for what little joy they had to be taken away.
Maybe this was as close as they would ever get to normal and safe and content. Maybe that was Slade's final blow. They would spend their whole lives looking over their shoulders for him, waiting for him to attack, and he just never would. They'd be stuck in a state of constant paranoia, always worried, always on the look out, hesitant to truly accept that maybe it was over. She wasn't sure she could live like that forever.
Later, she would think that outcome would have been a blessing.
Oliver told her he loved her on a Wednesday morning.
She was getting ready for work, a towel wrapped around her head in a truly unflattering way, and he was sitting in the armchair by the window, his shirt undone and his tie hanging from his neck. He was barefoot, preferring not to put on shoes or socks until absolutely necessary. Occasionally, she called him Tarzan; if he could get away with never wearing clothes, he would. In fact, he spent an innumerable amount of weekends walking around her apartment completely naked and not the least bit abashed. Not that she was complaining.
"We have that meeting at 11," she reminded him, going through her closet for the dress she'd decided on last night but hadn't had a chance to pull out from the overstuffed recesses of her closet. "Don't let me forget, I need to stop and pick up bagels. And not from that one store, because ew, those bagels were terrible. Maybe we'll try that other one. You know the one, by the pet store on fifth? Thea said they made good bagels." She finally found her dress and pulled it out with a triumphant, "Ah-hah!" She smiled as she laid it out on the foot of the bed. "Speaking of Thea, she says she's been making progress at those grief and loss meetings she's been going to. I mean, I don't expect her to get over it any time soon. I know she's still trying to figure out who the Arrow is. But she's taking a big step in trying to accept Roy's death. And your dad's too, I think. It's been hard. I don't think she ever really accepted what happened. Or, at least, I don't think she talked about it with anyone. Not in-depth anyway. And it sounds like it's working, so it could be really good for her." She shrugged. "I might join her next week, I think. I… It could be good, to talk about Digg and Sara." She nodded, chewing on her lip. "I don't know. It's just an idea."
Turning on her heel, she walked over to her dresser and pulled open the top drawer, grabbing out a pair of underwear and a cute bra. "Which reminds me, I need to talk to my landlord about extra parking. Having your car parked out front every night seems like a bad idea. It doesn't cost a lot to get another parking spot in the back lot, it's just a matter of whether or not there's any space. I know you said I should just let my lease on my car run out, but seriously, a girl needs a get-away car for emergencies, you know? Like late-night ice cream runs, which fancy town cars are way too weird for. Actually, while on the topic of cars, we should get you something else, since you refuse to hire a driver, which makes your town car kind of, well, pointless. I mean, we could keep with the public persona and get something flashy, but if you think I'm going to drive a Porsche to get mint-chip, you're nuts. And don't start with the bike-talk either. We leave your bike at the club for a reason. You need to stop casually driving that thing around or people will start putting two and two together and come up with-"
"I love you."
"-four." She paused, looking up at him, her brows hiked. "I mean… what?"
He smiled at her, his head tipped to the side as his eyes washed over her face. "I'm in love with you."
Felicity swallowed tightly, her knees wobbling beneath her, and then blew out a breath. "Oh."
His smile grew into a grin. "Oh?"
Shaking her head, she closed her eyes for a moment. "Sorry, I-I didn't mean 'oh' as in 'oh, that's nice, thanks for sharing' or like 'oh, really? That's awkward.' I just mean, like, 'oh.' Which, I know sounds like the same thing, except it doesn't in my head, because 'oh, you're in love with me, and I've imagined you saying this a few thousand times but not when I had a towel on my head and was rambling about ice cream.' Well, actually, no, even in my fantasies I ramble, which is probably a bad sign of something, but, whatever." She waved her hands. "The point I was trying to make was that I wasn't expecting it to sound so… real, but it did and you do and… and I love you, too."
He held a hand out to her and she crossed the space between them to take it, feeling his fingers fold between hers. He tugged her until she slid into his lap and then he reached up and released her hair from her towel, tossing it in the general direction of the hamper. He combed his fingers through her hair before he cupped her face and brought her in close, until her lips were almost on his. "Felicity…"
"Mm…" she hummed, her gaze darting down to his lips before reaching back up to meet his.
Quietly, like a whisper reaching through a room full of sound, he said, "I love you."
And then he kissed her, and he said it with his lips cradling hers and his fingers dancing down the slope of her neck. He tugged the towel loose from its knot over her chest and let his mouth print his declaration into her skin. He turned her so her head fell to his shoulder and her legs spread open to either side of his. His fingers wrote it on her clit and across her pussy before sinking inside her and making her shout his name while he sucked on the pulse at her neck.
And as she came down with him whispering in her ear how beautiful she was, how he loved the way she said his name when she came, how he wanted to see her do that for the rest of their lives, she listened to her heart hammering away like an echo of his words.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
Sometimes she could convince herself that her life was normal. That the empty spaces people used to occupy weren't glaringly void. But then she would turn to see if Sara wanted to get a drink and talk and unwind from the day, only to find that place on the corner of her desk where she used to sit empty. Some days she would pick up an extra burger at Big Belly for John and remember that he couldn't eat it. And some nights, she would go to that meeting with Thea, hold her hand as she broke down, and wish there was a mouthy teenager still around to smirk and tug on Thea's hair and make her smile like she used to.
The foundry echoed with voices that still lingered but were never loud enough. Oliver tried to make up for it by making more noise on the salmon ladder, by beating up invisible opponents on the mats, but in the end there was only the two of them. Always searching for a new target and waiting for that terrible moment when Slade resurfaced and they were faced with two becoming one or none. Because Felicity wasn't naïve, she knew that death was coming. No matter how tightly Oliver held her or how deeply he kissed her, no matter how often he told her he loved her or how much he truly meant it, one day soon there would be another voice to echo in the foundry, and it would be one of theirs.
To stamp out those fears, she trained a little harder, sunk into his embrace deeper, and smiled a bit brighter. But even her light had to dim eventually.
He was going to hurt you. There was no choice to make.
Those words, that once held such comfort, would haunt her for the rest of her days.
Felicity remembered starkly the moment that she told Oliver not to underestimate Slade Wilson.
What she should have remembered was never to underestimate Oliver Queen.
Two years. That was how long it took for Slade Wilson to circle back to them. She wondered if he'd spent all of his time planning or if he simply got tired of fighting other battles and returned to the one with Oliver for something to do. He did like the drama of it, didn't he?
The foundry was in shambles. He'd brought it down on her head while Oliver had been visiting Thea and Moira for a family dinner still rife with too much tension and deceit. He'd asked her to come but she'd firmly told him no. It wasn't that his family wasn't aware they were a couple, because they were, but she knew that her presence only ever made things worse with Moira. As much as the woman seemed to appreciate her loyalty and even her chutzpa in doing the right thing, Felicity was still the reason that Moira's relationship with Oliver was barely holding on. Felicity often wanted to argue that it was Moira's behaviour with Malcolm Merlyn and the lies she told for years that were the actual reason for that betrayal causing a rift, but semantics weren't going to go over well, so she left it alone.
However, when the foundry began to shake, she realized her mistake. Slade was waiting for a chance and this was it.
What he didn't know was that she'd put a panic room into the foundry for an event like this. Malcolm's earthquake machines had taught her that, as much as the foundry seemed like it was unshakeable, it wasn't. She managed to get into the panic room, but just barely, and she was pretty sure one of the hanging lights was what clipped her shoulder as she ran. A scrape down her arm currently gushing a ridiculous amount of blood warned her that she wouldn't be walking away from this unscathed.
The shaking seemed to go on forever; the noise deafening. She wasn't sure what to expect when she finally opened the door. Rubble and support beams? How would she get out if the stairs were destroyed? Had he taken the whole of Verdant apart? It was a Sunday, so the likelihood of anyone being upstairs was slim. But that also depended on how he'd destroyed Verdant. Was the surrounding area destroyed, too? Was this a mini-Undertaking or condensed to just the club?
When she finally got the door open, she was hesitant to step outside of it. She could smell smoke long before she saw it, but when she did, it was all there was. Black, rolling clouds of smoke that blanketed everything. A shiver of fear ran down her spine, a flashback to the Undertaking and how the roof had fallen around her, fire breaking out and her equipment sparking all over, ran through her mind. Refusing to let it freeze her in place, she pushed the door further open and turned her head up to see what the damage was. Some of the roof had caved in, but the support beams were still holding up a lot of it. It looked like the stairs were still intact, but she wouldn't know until she got to them.
She started climbing over chunks of cement and lamented how decimated her foundry she was. Her computers were buried, the chair she'd been sitting on chillingly destroyed under a chunk of the roof twice her size. Her arm stung; she held it close to her chest as she tried to escape, tripping and scrambling to get closer to the stairs. She paused when she reached the glass case with Oliver's suit inside. What if the cops came? What if they found all of this? They had to be on their way. Glades or not, they would have to answer when the fire and smoke filled the sky. Right? She reached inside the case and pulled his suit out, balling it up under her arm before she moved to where he kept a gym bag. She didn't have time to get his bows and arrows; there were too many of them and the smoke was getting so thick that she was coughing with every breath. She just hoped Oliver got here before the police did. Or maybe she could convince Lance to cordon the area off so she could sneak a few important things out…
She was working the problem over in her head as she climbed up the rickety stairs. They wobbled beneath her and she felt fear clamp down hard on her heart. Hurrying up the steps, she plugged in the numbers to the keypad, hoping it hadn't been damaged, and let out a breath of relief as they door clicked open. She closed it behind her and started across the dance floor of Verdant, biting her lip as she found the ground uneven, cement floor pushing up in some places while whole chunks of it had fallen through to the foundry below. It looked much worse from up here. The whole club seemed slanted to one side and she feared any wrong move might topple it.
The holes in front of her made the floor look like a supersized hopscotch course, smoke curling up and shadows from the fire below playing eerily all around. There was a back door she would have usually gone out, but she could already see that one of the upper floors had caved in, blocking it from use. So that meant she had to go through the front, and hope the floor was still steady enough not to cave in as soon as she touched it. With the duffelbag over her shoulder and her arm pressed tight to her chest, she bent to pick up a chunk of the ceiling to throw in front of her. When it skittered over the floor without making it fall apart, she took a deep breath and started walking forward. Maybe it would be better to run, she thought. Verdant never seemed so large as in that moment.
She barely made it twenty feet before a familiar laugh echoed through the hollowed out husk of a club.
And then he was there, standing in the center, a ghoulish yellow and black mask in place. He tore it off to see her better, grinning at her savagely. "It's been too long," he shouted to her, spreading his arms out wide.
She swallowed back her fear and blurted, "You know, if I had a choice, I think I'd firmly check the 'wish I'd never met him at all' box on the questionnaire."
He cocked his head as he walked forward. "You present an issue for me, Miss Smoak… I'd once thought to let you live. An homage, some might say… You see, in this rehash, you're an equivalent. Oliver's Shado, you might say. Of course, he had her and destroyed her, so maybe that is where the similarity begins to break down."
"If there's anyone to be blamed for Shado's death, it was Ivo. You, carrying this on, destroying innocent lives, that doesn't sound like an homage. That sounds like murder for the sake of feeding your rage." She stepped forward, glaring at him now. "You killed my friends, my family," she screamed through gritted teeth. "People who had nothing to do with Shado's death."
"But he did! He killed her! So he doesn't get to move on. He doesn't get to pull himself back together and forget about her. His protégé is dead, his brother is dead, the woman he chose to save instead of Shado is dead. And now all that's left to take from him is you. You and maybe that pretty little sister of his, hm?" He raised an eyebrow over his one good eye. "But you're the one that's going to destroy him. Just like Shado's death took everything from me, killing you will finally bring Oliver to my level." He reached back then and took a sword from his back, wielding it with such grace that she swore she could already feel the razor sharp edge biting at her skin. Seeing her flinch, he offered a half-grin. "Don't worry, dear one. I'll make it quick."
"If you think I'm going to kneel at your feet and let it happen, you're wrong." She took the duffelbag from her shoulder and laid it at her feet. "I'm done being a victim in your game, do you hear me?" She shifted back and forth on her feet, adrenaline pumping through her veins. "If I'm Shado in this little remake, then what do you think she'd do, huh?"
He bared his teeth like fangs. "She'd fight to the bitter end." His eye narrowed on her. "Unlike you, she'd probably win."
Felicity knew her chances of survival were slim, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to try to get out of there alive. Engaging him head on was almost certain death, so that meant she needed to find a way around him, to get her outside and into the street, where there were witnesses and, possibly, hopefully, a full fleet of police on their way toward the club right now.
"Will you run?" he asked her. "I didn't take you for a coward."
"Is it cowardice when you're facing a man with super strength and a sword?" she asked, her eyes still darting around the floor.
"Would you like me to even the field, Miss Smoak?" He pulled a second sword from his back and tossed it in her direction. It skidded across the floor toward her. "Go on. Pick it up."
"Right, because now that I have a weapon I haven't been trained in, we're so much more even," she scoffed.
His mouth ticked up on one side. "I wouldn't be a very good soldier if I gave you too much of an advantage."
"I don't think you're a good 'anything' at this point. Except maybe villain, but I wouldn't suggest putting it on your resume. Not that you really need to look for a job, since you're apparently a pretty affluent businessman at this point. If we weren't in a grudge match right now, I might ask how the hell that happened, but, well, we are, so…" She reached down to grab up the sword, the unfamiliar weight of it in her hands threw her center of balance off a bit. "Great. Now I'm wielding something wildly sharp with no formal training against a fearless madman. This is like Oliver's worst nightmare. And probably mine, too. Add in some kangaroos and needles and you'd have to sign me up for a straitjacket."
"Are you going to talk me to death?"
Letting out a nervous laugh, she wondered, "Is that an option?"
He spun his sword in his hand and stepped toward her.
"Right, we're doing this, now, because why not? I mean, unless you'd be up for rescheduling? Maybe when my arm isn't flayed open? If you hadn't totalled my computers I'd be able to look up my schedule, see when I have a free day for a showdown at dawn." While she continued to babble at him, she found herself backing up, away from the man making large strides in her direction, eager for a fight that she was sure would end in her death. She turned her head, looking for an escape. There was a small ledge of cement against the wall, but otherwise she was faced with a huge hole in the floor. She darted toward it, turning her eyes up to avoid looking at how high up she was, and crossed the ledge with quick, frantic steps. Slade, however, just changed direction and continued to advance on her.
It was a constant race of her fighting her way across the floor, desperately trying to get closer to the front door, hindered by the giant holes and slanted ground. The sword was heavy in her one good arm, and frustrated tears pricked at her eyes. This was not supposed to be how she died. But then, Roy wasn't supposed to die by beheading and Sara shouldn't have died as a sacrifice to manpain, and Digg-Digg should never have died. Period. Ever. And yet here she was, about to die in a night club, which just seemed ironic when she thought about how little she'd ever been in one outside of her work in the foundry. Seriously, before the few hangouts with Thea, when the club was everything but bumping, Sara managed to get her upstairs to hang out every once in a while, but she was more of a coffee shop and karaoke bar kind of girl. A waste, maybe, but now that she was facing her mortality in one, maybe not so much.
"You've run out of options," Slade exclaimed then, drawing her eye. He wasn't far now, and he was blocking her only way to the door. Well, unless she was going to grow wings to get across the huge holes on either side of him that blocked any chance of getting out. "Let it end here."
"See, I would, if that end meant your end, but I really don't think that's what you're implying, so…"
His mouth twitched. "Do you know what I regret?"
"I imagine there's a lot. Would you like to sit down and talk about it? Maybe over a few drinks, without the swords or bloodshed?"
"I regret that he won't be here to see it happen… I'd hoped he'd watch you die. But maybe this is fitting. He'll find you, just like I found her. He'll know. As soon as it happens, he'll know that you're gone. And he'll never forgive himself for not being there when it happened."
Felicity shook her head, the heat of the fire below was making her sweat, making her hair frizz and curl and stick to her skin. "I get that you loved her, okay? I understand that she meant everything to you and that it looked like Oliver betrayed you and her. But how is what you're doing any better?" Swallowing tightly, she lowered her sword, leaning on it a little. "If you kill me to hurt him, how are you any better than him?"
He stared at her a long moment. "I'm not," he answered. "The truth is, I'm not sure I was ever a good man. But I do know what I'm good at." He walked toward her slowly. "I want you to know this isn't about you. It was never truly about you. You loved the wrong man, you were loyal to him, you trusted him. So did she. But there are sacrifices that must be made, debts that must be paid, and you, girl, you're one of them."
When he was close enough, she lashed out. She swung her sword out and the tip caught his face, slicing across his cheek and drawing blood. He grinned, wiping at it, smearing it across his skin. "Atta girl," he encouraged, raising his sword. "Fight me."
So, she did. Or, she tried. She swung and jabbed and slashed her sword at him, but she wasn't trained for this. Oliver taught her hand to hand and how to get out of a choke hold and how to deflect a blow. He taught her what to do when someone shoved a gun in her face and how to knock someone unconscious. He taught her defense more than offense. If she had an escrima stick, her blows would be cleaner, but this sword felt nothing like an extension of her arm. It felt clunky and too large for her, it felt unnatural with how she moved and who she was. This was Death. It was not wounding an opponent or warning them to leave her alone, it was destroying them.
Felicity had never likened herself to a destroyer.
He stabbed his sword clean through her shoulder and she gasped at the pain that flowed through her. He yanked it back and smiled gleefully as blood poured from the wound, seeping down her front and soaking her shirt, plastering it to her. The arm he'd attacked was the only good one she had and the sword she held fell from her useless fingers, clanging on the floor. Her arms crossed over her chest as she stumbled back a step.
He followed after her a little more leisurely, his sword dripping with her blood.
She tripped over a chunk of cement and fell backwards, landing on her butt and crying out as her arms were jarred.
Felicity closed her eyes then, taking in a deep breath despite the smoke that was quickly filling the main level. The last thing she saw would not be Slade Wilson. She thought of Roy's snicker and Sara's smile and John's hug and Oliver… Just Oliver. She thought of how he'd pulled her back into bed that morning, laughing as he peppered her face with kisses and tried to convince her to sleep in with him. She thought of how he'd dragged his feet before going to his mother's, asking her again to please come with him, wasting time putting arrows away in an effort to stick around longer. She thought of the kiss he'd pressed to her temple before he left her in the foundry at her computers, promising he'd be back in a few short hours.
She sent up a silent apology for having to leave him, for adding her name to the list of casualties he blamed himself for, and hoped he understood that she'd tried, she'd fought, but she'd failed.
The final blow did not come, however.
Not to her.
The sickening sound of a blade cutting through flesh and blood reached her, but when she opened her eyes it was to see Slade's sword stuck through Oliver's stomach. She should have known he would come. He always came. He stood between her and Slade and took the sword meant for her. He'd swung down from the rafters like he had when she found herself standing on that landmine on Lian Yu. He was still holding the rope he'd used to do it, but it slipped from his fingers, useless now, mission accomplished.
She watched as blood bloomed over his back, soaking his shirt.
He let out a strangled noise and she screamed. "Oliver!"
Shoving up to her feet, she scrambled to get to him.
Slade pulled his sword free and stepped back.
Oliver fell to his knees and Felicity wrapped her arms around him, desperately trying to hold him up. His head fell against her shoulder, making her wince as it stretched and pulled. She stroked a shaking hand over his face and shook her head. "I told you- I told you not to sacrifice yourself for me," she choked out, tears spilling down her cheeks.
He stared up at her, sucking in halting breaths. "He had you… He was going to hurt you…" A tear slid from the corner of his eye as he reached up for her, his bloody hand cupping her cheek. She leaned into it as a sob broke from her lips. "There was no choice to make," he whispered.
Blinking back her tears, she raised her head to see Slade standing a few feet away, a confused look on his face.
"Please," she begged. "Please, don't let him die like this. He was your friend once."
He stared at her, a hollow look in his eye, and then he turned on his heel to walk away.
"Slade," she yelled. "SLADE!"
But he didn't stop. He left her there with a man she couldn't carry, her arms practically useless, a building filled with smoke and fire, falling around her. Holding Oliver to her, she searched his pockets for his phone and finally found it in the inside pocket of his jacket. She dialed 911 and told them to send an ambulance to Verdant, and then she called Lance, desperately asking him for help, babbling to the point where she wasn't even coherent. Finally, she let the phone fall from her fingers.
"I'll get you out," she told Oliver. "I'll drag you out if I have to. Okay?"
She struggled to move out from beneath him, remembering the day that she found out who he really was. How she'd tried so hard to get him from the car to the foundry before eventually having to ask Digg for help. But there was no John tonight, no Sara or Roy or Lance. So Felicity sunk her blood-slick hands under Oliver's armpits and she dragged him across the uneven floor of Verdant, her arms screaming at her in protest. The smoke was thick, making her cough and blink back tears. She tripped a few times over chunks of rubble, nearly falling through one of the holes to the foundry below, but eventually, bit by bit, she made it to the door leading outside.
Only to find it locked.
"Son of a bitch!" She slapped her hand against the door and yelled, kicking at it in frustration. Pushing and pushing, she tried using her shoulder to shove it open, even as pain ricocheted throughout her so completely that her vision went white.
Crying, she slid down to the floor, the door against her back and Oliver's head cradled in her lap.
She could just imagine it, Slade's last remaining sword slipped through the handles to keep her from opening it.
She laughed then, hysterical and defeated.
Oliver's fingers stroked her cheek, dashing away tears, and she looked down at him, staring up at her.
Shaking her head, she bent to kiss his lips, wet with his blood. She squeezed her eyes shut. "I love you," she whispered. "I love you, Oliver."
His hands curled in her hair and held on tight. "I'm sorry," he rasped. "I did this to you. It's my fault."
"No." She rubbed her thumb down his cheek. "No, it was my choice, okay?" She smiled at him then, her lips quivering. "I chose you and this life and every part of it. I will always choose you." Her tears dripped down to draw trails on his face.
"Hey…"
She stared down at him, one of her hands splayed over his heart, counting the beats, closing her eyes when she felt his heart slowing down.
"You remember… you asked me… if I had any happy stories," he slurred.
She nodded, rubbing her thumb over his chin. "Yeah."
"You're it," he breathed, looking up at her with bright blue eyes full of love and adoration and reverence. "You're my happy story." He smiled then as he said her name, "Felicity."
And with that, his fingers loosened in her hair and his eyes, overflowing with so much emotion just a moment ago, went blank and void and empty. He died with her name on his lips and she screamed so loud she thought her voice would dislodge the remaining foundation of the club, bringing it down on their heads and ending her absolute misery.
But it didn't.
Instead, she sat there, desperately holding the love of her life, inhaling smoke and dying a slow, empty death, until eventually she passed out, bent over him as if to save him from one last, invisible foe.
Felicity didn't believe in love at first sight.
But she believed in love.
She believed it could build as much as it could destroy. That it could triumph as much as it could fail. That it could consume as much as it could create. She believed she loved Oliver, with every breath in her body and every beat of her heart, with every smile and every laugh and every sigh. She loved him with every fibre of her being, fractured or otherwise. Before tragedy had eaten away at who she was and the family she'd chosen as her own. When their team was built on a vision of justice and her naïve hopes for a better world fueled her drive to help him. She loved him then. She loved him after. When the foundry whispered hollowly with the voices of people long lost, when their mission became a day-to-day race to survive. She loved him before and after and during.
And she always would.
[Next: Part III.]
author's note: /ducks/ So... that happened. In my defense, I did set up a lot of foreshadowing. Actually, everything is just intensely foreshadowed all over the place, lol. I'd always planned for Oliver to die. I didn't enjoy writing it, but it had to happen to lead into the final arc of the story. I know a lot of you are probably really upset, feel free to tell me how much in a review of pure agony.
Thank you all for reading! I received such an amazing response to this and I was just so, so touched by how moved you all were. Even if it was completely depressing. I really appreciate all the feedback I received, and I tried to update last night, but my internet just went kaput on me. So I hope you guys are okay with only a two day wait. :)
I plan to have the next part out very soon. I could do it tomorrow, maybe before the episode? If you guys' want?
Please leave a review; they're my lifeblood, and this story killed me to write as much as it killed you to read it!
- Lee | Fina