Chapter Text
i.
It's a sunny Tuesday afternoon when Felicity Smoak's life crumbles around her. She is sixteen years old, and it's the achingly ordinary second day of the second week back at school after a blazing Nevada summer. She's got high hopes, and ambitions that are going to take her far away from her dusty apartment with the busted air con, far away from the pretty girls who call her teacher’s pet and the spotty boys who tease her about her glasses. Far away from double PE.
It starts with nose bleeds. Three of them, on three consecutive days, leading up to that fateful Tuesday running track around a field filled with crispy grass. The tiredness comes hand in hand with the bleeding. She falls asleep in math class, and that's never happened before. Not to her. Felicity used to roll her eyes at the kids who did that, but then it happens to her and her best friend is shaking her awake, whispering the answer to a question she doesn't know she's been asked.
Running track makes her collapse. She maintains that it is heat exhaustion when the paramedics swim into her field of vision, and her friends remind her that she was in too much of a rush to eat breakfast that morning. Either way, she winds up in a hospital bed in a paper thin gown, her mother clutching dramatically at her hand. Felicity tells her mother that she is fine, that she's been feeling a little sick lately, but she had a big test this morning she couldn't afford to miss. She's lying through her teeth when she tells the doctor that she feels completely better now, but she allows them to draw vials of her blood until she starts feeling faint all over again.
"The doctor says you need rest. You have to stay home from school tomorrow, baby," her mom insists on the drive home, worry etched onto her face.
"Can't. It's career day," Felicity frowns, "I'm ok mom, really."
She's not ok. Felicity drags herself through school, using everything she has to stay awake, forgetting half the things she meant to ask the MIT representatives. When she gets home, there are four messages on their battered answering machine. It's the hospital, and when her mom gets in an hour later, Felicity breaks the news in a shaking voice that they have to return there as soon as possible. No, she doesn't know why, yes, it's imperative.
She has cancer. But she can't have, not really, because sixteen is too young to get cancer. But the test results say she does. The doctor with the soothing voice says she does. The nosebleeds and the exhaustion and the passing out say that she does.
It's leukaemia. Her own blood has turned against her, poisoning her. Felicity wants to cry, but the tears won't come.
They need to do more tests, need to confirm that it is leukaemia and what type it is, what stage it is. She’s supposed to doing math tests not tests to see how sick she is. Felicity Smoak is supposed to graduate from high school and drive far, far away from Vegas. She's supposed to be studying for and going to parties, complaining about how unfair her English teacher's marking is. Instead, everything moves at lightning speed, and before she knows it she has landed herself a spot on the paediatric oncology ward of the hospital, and she's being officially diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. She belongs to cancer now.
It doesn't feel real, but it is. They give her a therapist, a kind woman with greying hair and a weird laugh, who tells her that people react to finding out they have cancer in different ways, and that it can feel like losing a part of you. It's normal to go through the grief process of denial, and anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Felicity thinks that's bullshit, until she realises she's already dived head first into stage one: denial. She cries herself to sleep that night for the first time.
She stays in the hospital for five whole weeks, growing to hate the walls surrounding her and the poison in the drips she's hooked up to. She loses bits of herself along the way, but gains friendship from people who get what she's going through, and a newfound strength she thought only existed in the movies. The chemo works. It batters her body, mind and soul, and it kills the cancer cells, so really, she owes it everything. She spends the night of her seventeenth birthday puking her guts up in a hospital bed, silent tears rolling down her cheeks; but her eighteenth in her best friend's bedroom, surrounded by people she loves, buzzed on vodka and cokes and feeling invincible.
Felicity Smoak gets accepted to MIT, dyes her hair black, and packs up her whole life into the back of her beat up old car. She leaves Nevada in her dust, just like she was always supposed to, and with it she leaves the sad, sixteen year old cancer patient behind too. She's moving on to brighter things. She's a survivor.
Felicity Smoak graduates with honours, takes a job in Starling City, signs the lease on a new apartment, makes a group of new friends, goes on a couple of dates, and tries to learn how to cook. Her life is ordinary, and she's never been happier.
It's all bought crashing down on a busy Monday morning in Starling City.
---
It's the beeping that wakes her up. The steady rhythm of the machines which she is apparently hooked up to.
She's in the hospital. Felicity opens her eyes and emits a long groan, because this is not how her Monday is supposed to be going, and this cannot be happening again. She shakes her head, trying to clear the fog which has settles inside of her brain. She was walking across the parking lot into work. She took the bus because her car refused to start, and it's Monday morning and she had three meetings scheduled for today. She does not have time for this.
Felicity collapsed in the parking lot, and she's praying that she has some kind of virus, dehydration, anything else, anything other than... She can't even bring herself to think the word. Her stomach ties herself in a knot and she struggles to sit up.
"Miss Smoak. Nice to see you’re awake," a dark haired woman in scrubs pulls aside the curtain of the cubicle and steps inside.
"It would seem that way," Felicity sighs, too afraid to ask all of the questions that she really wants to.
"I'm Doctor Martin," she offers up her hand for Felicity to shake, and she mentally crosses off 'infectious disease' from her list of 'things that might be wrong with me.' She's almost disappointed.
"Felicity Smoak. But I'm guessing you know that already. Somehow," Felicity narrows her eyes at the doctor.
"You were carrying ID with you when you were bought in."
"Oh right. Of course," Felicity runs her hand through her hair. Her mind is scattered, like she can’t pin her thoughts down.
"How are you feeling?" Doctor Martin asks, pulling the clipboard from the end of the clean, white, hospital bed.
"I'm fine," Felicity answers on autopilot. She hasn't really taken stock of her body yet, but she does know that her head shouldn't be pounding like this, and she shouldn't be this damn tired. On the other hand, all of her limbs are intact, so that’s a step closer to ‘fine’.
"It's important that I know how you're feeling," the doctor surveys Felicity with suspicion. "I understand that you're a cancer survivor." Felicity swallows hard, her pulse picking up. Not this. Not now. Not ever again.
"Yeah. I am. I survived cancer, but it's gone now, it was a long time ago that I was sick. But I know that cancer treatments can have lasting effects on the body, for example stunting the growth of young children, so I don't know, maybe I collapsed because of some residual damage from the chemotherapy? Several interesting studies have been published recently on the-"
"Felicity!" Doctor Martin interrupts her panicked spiel. "I'm not saying that your cancer is back. I'm just saying that it's something we will need to test for, something you need to keep in mind."
"What if I don't want to keep it in mind?" Felicity mutters, her voice barely audible above the din of the ER. The doctor sighs, a sad look crossing her face.
"We need to carry out some tests." She squeezes Felicity's shoulder. "I'm going to send a nurse in to take some blood, and you'll need to collect the results with your own doctor. They should be ready within twenty-four hours, so make an appointment as soon as possible."
"Tomorrow is no good for me," Felicity shakes her head. For starters, it's not like she can miss any more work, and apart from that, the results are going to make whatever this is real. Maybe it's nothing, and the results will put her mind at ease, but on the other hand it might be... Something.
She's not ready to take that risk.
"Well, make it for Wednesday then." The Doctor suggests.
"Wednesday. Ok. I can do Wednesday I guess." Felicity agrees, beginning to worry her bottom lip.
"Make sure you do, Miss Smoak. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how serious this could be." Her words make Felicity squirm uncomfortably. She's not thinking about that right now, nope. She gives a quick nod by way of reply.
"Can I leave after my blood has been taken?" She asks, mentally calculating what time she can be back at work.
"Not yet, I’m afraid," Doctor Martin looks genuinely apologetic, but it does little to appease Felicity.
"We need to keep you under observation for a couple hours, because you were unconscious for quite a while."
"And is there any way I can get out of this? That hand shake earlier, was I supposed to hand you a twenty during it?" Felicity checks, only half joking.
"No," the Doctor smiles, "just relax. There's every possibility that you collapsed due to stress."
"Hmm. Great. Can I call work? I need to check that I still have a job, you know," Felicity is worried; missing work without letting anyone know why is a big no-no, that's just common knowledge.
"Sure, but you're not allowed to use a cell phone in here. There's a pay phone at the end of the hall," she points to the left, and hangs the clipboard back on the end of the bed.
"Ok. Thanks," Felicity checks that the gown she woke up in is done up at the back, and then moves to stand.
"I'll send one of the nurses in for the bloods within the next thirty minutes. See you later," and with that, the doctor sweeps from the room.
"Not like there's any rush," Felicity mutters under her breath.
---
There's a queue at the payphone and Felicity thinks she might never get to call work. There’s a young woman with a baby on her hip screaming into the receiver in a language Felicity can’t identify. She prepares for a long haul. Behind the screaming woman is a nervous looking, middle aged man, and behind him is... Oliver Queen. His father is her boss, and she’s not quite sure what that makes Oliver apart from ‘the media's bad boy’.
Felicity has never met him before, but she has seen him around QC before, usually trailing after his father. As heir to the business throne, Oliver's job is to trail his father, trying to learn something useful or earn his keep or whatever he’s doing. Felicity knows that he's a notorious womaniser and that he's been arrested more times than she can keep track off. But he doesn't look so bad, standing in line at the payphone, head bowed, wearing casual clothing and scuffed boots. He just looks like a regular guy standing in line at a payphone. She doesn’t know why that’s so strange to her, or what else she would have expected- he just looks out of place.
He looks up as she approaches, and she notices the dark circles under his eyes. He's tired. Felicity wonders why he’s in the hospital, and why he’s in this hospital, not some fancy private institute where they charge you for the air you breathe.
She smiles at him, in spite of herself, and he returns the gesture. His smile doesn't reach his eyes, but she supposes that hers probably doesn't either, not today. The ER is not a place associated with wide smiles. Felicity leans against the wall beside him, feeling the cold concrete seep through her shirt. The woman using the payphone is getting louder, somehow. Felicity sighs, drumming her fingers against the wall.
"So," she jumps. Oliver Queen is speaking to her. Oh. "What are you in for?"
She snorts before she can stop herself. "What am I in for? Six counts of armed robbery, how about you?" She doesn't know why those words leave her mouth, but they do. For a moment she regrets them, hates herself for being unable to control what she says. He's going to think she's some kind of crazy (she can't put her finger on why that bothers her so much), but then she glances at him and he's chuckling at his feet.
"Homicide. But I’m innocent," he winks at her, and she gets mad at her body for creating ridiculous butterflies in her stomach. Two can play at that game.
"Sure you didn't," she winks back, an overzealous, stage wink, "it's our little secret."
"Ok," he shoots back, deathly serious. "But I should take your name, if we're going to be trading secrets on a regular basis."
"Wow, presumptuous," Felicity tries to act serious too, but ends up smirking at him. Smirking. "I'm Felicity. Smoak." She tells him after a pause of not-so-awkward eye contact. She wonders if her makeup is a mess, if she looks as worn down as he does. Her heart is beating in her ears.
"Oliver Qu-"
"Queen. I know who you are." She says without missing a beat, and then realises she sounds like a crazy person again. "Oh no, you probably think I'm some kind of stalker. I'm not, I swear. But you're a Queen, your family is pretty famous. You're on the news a lot, not that that's a bad thing! Also, I work for your father, so there's that." Felicity has to clamp her teeth down on her lip to stop herself from rambling on forever. She chances a look at her new acquaintance out of the corner of her eye, and only releases her lip when she sees a small smile playing on his own lips.
"You work for Queen Consolidated?" He asks, seeming genuinely interested. "I'm sure I would have remembered a pretty face like yours."
"Oh!" He called her pretty. She kicks herself for being such a girl about it, but hell, she's stuck in the hospital, she needs something good to happen today. Then again, this is Oliver Queen. He probably says that to all the girls he thinks he has a shot with. "Well, yeah. I work in the IT department." She explains.
"IT? I don't get down there much. You guys pretty much manage yourselves."
"Yeah. We're a pretty independent bunch," she nods. "But, uh, I was actually planning on using the phone to see whether I still have a job. No employer takes kindly to their staff just not showing up to work with no explanation," she tells him.
"But you're in the hospital," he frowns, "no one's going to fire you for being in the hospital."
"You sure about that?" She winces a little.
"Sure." He nods. "And I'll tell you what, Felicity Smoak. Since you're keeping my homicide secret, leave this with me. I'll sort it out. I mean, I'm seeing you here with my own eyes, and I don't think anyone would choose to come to hospital and wear one of those attractive gowns just to get out of work."
"I don't know, they're pretty hot fashion items," she laughs, a little nervous, thanking her lucky stars she woke up before they wrangled her into a gown, before the main part of the information has hit her. "Wait, really? You'll fix it for me?"
"Yeah. Don't worry about it. Are you going to be in tomorrow?" He asks.
"Wouldn't miss it."
"Ok. I'll see you then," he smiles, "go and rest, or go home, or whatever it is they want you to be doing."
She blinks up at him, scanning his face from chapped lips to unkempt hair. "Thank you. Seriously. Thank you, Oliver," she smiles back, her eyes meeting his. She notes that they are sad eyes. "And I'm actually stuck here for a few more hours, so, I should probably get back to that," she sighs, pushing away from the wall. There are scratchy hospital sheets and needles and a bleak future ahead of her. She looks into the warm eyes and the small smile of Oliver Queen and wishes she didn’t have to go.
But the woman with the baby is slamming the phone into the wall and walking away, and the line moves forward. Felicity takes a few steps backwards and watches as Oliver runs his hand across his face, eyes scrunching shut for a few seconds, like he wants to be anywhere but here, with anyone but her. She swallows hard and turns to leave.
"Hey!" He calls after her. She turns. "Are you ok?" She's surprised by the question.
"I'm fine," she replies, trying to keep her voice steady and honest, wishing it to be true. "Are you?" She checks.
"Me? I'm great." He's looking at his shoes again. "I just come here to scout out beautiful women," he smiles again, and this time it's closer to his eyes. It's the smile she pictures when she's having needles dug into her arms, and the smile she holds in her mind that night as she tries to keep it together.