Chapter Text
Bereft.
It's not a word she remembers using before, in any context, and certainly not to describe herself. But this is her new reality, this sense of desolation, of unfathomable loss, of unending heartbreak.
Oliver is gone.
Since the beginning of his mission, they assumed he would always return. Oliver faces danger every night. It is the life he chose... or maybe it had chosen him after five brutal years of battling to survive. As The Arrow, he fearlessly strides nightly into imminent peril without hesitation. But he comes back. Bruised, bleeding, limping. Fresh wounds upon old scars. They forgot he was mortal because his rock-solid strength convinced them otherwise, having beaten terrible odds time and again. Even after Sara's murder, it's inconceivable that The Arrow could be felled.
Until now. After a week with no word, the cold fist of fear clutches Felicity's heart in a relentless vise. She absorbs the growing certainty of Oliver's downfall as a trauma victim might, surrendering to shock and pain. No thing, or person, or platitude can console her.
The terrible realization that their leader’s absence may be permanent affects each of the Arrow’s team in different ways. John and Roy "suit up" nightly, as darkness falls, to fight Starling City's unending supply of big bad. They stay on track, as if nothing is amiss, as if their world -- the world Oliver built-- is not crumbling. Laurel, still reeling from her sister's death, seems numb to the possibility of another imminent tragedy. Thea, because she knows nothing of her brother’s perilous life wearing the hood, worries over Ollie's disappearance, but has no reason to suspect the worst-- that her protective big brother may have sacrificed himself to shield her from the Demon's Head, R'as al Ghul.
And then there's Felicity, his "Girl Wednesday," whose connection to Oliver is, as they say, complicated. From the beginning, the electricity between them lit up The Foundry, although it would be more than two years before Oliver would give voice to his feelings, before his lips would touch hers. The bittersweet kiss. It haunts her now, shredding her with the growing realization that the unforgettable kiss – the one she had long craved – was not just their first. It was their only, their last.
For Felicity, there is no going on, no powering through, these dark days, these indefinite nights. Just as the body cannot keep moving once the heart is stilled, only she accepts that losing Oliver means Team Arrow is done. He is gone, maybe forever, and that brings the end of so many things: saving the city, fighting the good fight, conquering evil, and on a personal level, keeping her place secure in his world, at his side. Maybe in his arms and someday, his bed? Now, someday will never come.
Malcolm had cruelly pronounced that Oliver was dead, causing Felicity to respond with venom, so unlike her. He had given a name to their collective dread, barely suppressing his smug satisfaction. His evil manipulations had undone them, had forced Oliver to climb that wretched mountain to his presumed death. And accomplished what? Thea – and Malcolm – are still targets. Oliver, in the prime of his life, has been cut down, lying broken on a snow-swept cliff, lost to the world, lost to her.
Felicity holds a newfound understanding of what it means to be bereft. It has surely claimed her as its own.
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Felicity's mind registers the distant sound of her phone's buzz. Again. It's the umpteenth unanswered call of the morning but she makes no move to respond. Listless, she slouches on her sofa, paging through Geek Monthly although she's seen every page twice without retaining a single detail.
The phone vibrates again and she stares in its direction as if she can silence it with her Jedi will. The apartment's a hopeless wreck, the cluttered room reflecting her state of mind.
"I'm a hot mess," Felicity admits aloud, but is too depressed to tackle her chaotic surroundings. Nor does she have the energy to take a phone call that will require her to lie, to reassure her mom or Diggle that she's fine, or worse, to cope with Ray Palmer's latest frenzied brainstorm for rebuilding the city or testing his enigmatic secret projects.
The sound of a heavy hand rapping against her front door startles Felicity so badly that she bolts off the couch, crashing into a side table, painfully stubbing her toe as she staggers toward the offending noise. Looking through the door's peep hole reveals a familiar imposing silhouette she recognizes as John Diggle.
After dragging her fingers through her unkempt hair, Felicity yanks the door open. A clearly exasperated Diggle crosses her threshold, his eyes scanning the room and stalking towards the kitchen table where he snatches her neglected phone, glancing at the screen and waving it in her direction.
"Eighteen unanswered calls and forty messages," he thunders. "I decided to drive over to make sure you weren't dead."
"And good morning to you too," Felicity grumbles, clutching her fluffy Hello Kitty robe around her as if it has the power to deflect the criticism in his voice, which softens as he takes in her pitiful appearance.
Diggle approaches, stoops and raises her chin gently to see her eyes.
"Hey, how are you, sweetheart?" he asks.
It is the "sweetheart" that breaks her. God, she pleads, how can she have any more tears left to cry?
Diggle sighs and draws Felicity into the solid wall of his chest where she burrows her face, surrendering a ragged sob. His broad, warm hand pats her shoulder and Felicity wonders if this is how he soothes a fussy baby Sara. Regardless, it's comforting to be held.
Then his deep voice rumbles beneath her ear. "I have news. Good news, Felicity."
She falls away from him, telling herself, don't hope. Don't imagine. Don't long for the impossible.
"He's alive."
The words nearly rock her off her feet. For a moment, there's a loud buzzing in her head as if her vibrating cell phone has been implanted between her ears.
"What?" she gasps. "He's what??"
A reassuring smile creases Diggle's face. "It's true, Felicity. Oliver has been found. Alive."
Questions rocket through Felicity's remarkable brain. "Where? How? When?"
But fear, her constant companion in recent days, keeps her heart captive. Felicity's voice quavers as she asks, "You're certain? It's not a mistake?"
"No, it's definitely Oliver. Sherpas found him and brought him down the mountain. He's not in good shape by any means, but on his way home. ARGUS is air-lifting him directly to Starling General."
Felicity flies from the room, shedding her robe as she runs in fleece pajamas towards the hallway. Then she makes an abrupt turn and dashes back to Diggle for another tearful embrace. "Thank you, John. Thank you, God."
The next hour is a surreal blur. Throwing on clothes and shoes. Snagging her purse and phone. Racing with John to the hospital. And then realising that she has rushed at breakneck speed in order to enter the fresh new hell of more waiting.
They bounce from station to station, following the winding maze of antiseptic hallways that remind Felicity of Dorothy tripping down the yellow brick road on her way to find the wizard. Finally they reach a surgical waiting room, where they are instructed to do what else? Wait.
Oliver is concealed somewhere in the hospital, having been rushed into surgery immediately upon his arrival.
Gradually, they gather in the waiting room, Team Arrow joined by Oliver's friends and Thea -- his only surviving relative. Felicity and Diggle. Roy with Thea. Laurel and her father. Each of them swept from their daily routine into the bizarre separate universe of florescent lighting, miles of shiny linoleum and the discordant smells of disinfectant and hospital food.
At the end of the Byzantine halls, beyond the reach of the assassin's blade, behind the swinging double doors, beneath the surgeon's blade, Oliver Queen lives.
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