Chapter Text
They say heavy is the head that wears the crown...
****
It’s several hours later when Laurel finally falls asleep. The sun in just starting to raise over the city, and in the light of day he can no longer pretend that this is just a bad dream. Sara is dead. She’s lying on the couch in the living room with three arrows in her, because they don’t know what to do with her body. Laurel doesn’t want to call the police, and Oliver doesn’t have the heart to make her do anything she doesn’t want to.
He pulls the blanket up to cover Laurel and places a gentle kiss to her forehead.
“I’ll be back,” he whispers, even though she won’t hear him.
He stands up and grabs his coat off of the back of the chair he’d been sitting in for the last few hours. He intends to make good on the promise he made to Laurel. He’s going to catch the bastard that killed Sara.
It’s that singular focus that keeps him going.
He doesn't allow himself to think too long and hard about Sara. If he lets it, the grief will consume him. He can’t let it. Laurel is counting on him to be strong. She needs somebody to take care of this for her and he owes her at least that much.
After all, it’s Oliver’s fault. The only reason Sara is here instead of off enjoying her life is because of him. If he hadn’t taken her on the Gambit, she would have graduated college, found herself a good job, a nice husband or wife, and would likely be thinking about starting a family. Instead, he’d selfishly brought her along with him on that boat and destroyed any hope at a normal life for her.
Sara Lance is dead.
Loving, brave, strong Sara who could withstand almost anything was killed last night. It just doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem real.
No, he stops himself before he starts to let the sadness sink too far into his heart. If he’s going to keep it together, he has to stop thinking about her. He doesn’t get to grieve. He has to stay strong. Laurel and Sara need him now more than ever, and he can’t let them down. Not again.
Oliver quietly makes his way out of the apartment, careful not to wake Laurel. He locks the door behind him and is about to go down the stairs when he notices something is blocking his path. Someone.
“I thought you left?” Oliver says, sitting down next to Felicity at the top of the stairs.
She shakes her head and he can see she’s been crying. He wants to comfort her, but he doesn’t know what to say.
“I stepped outside to give you two some space,” Felicity says.
He nods in understanding. Laurel had been a mess when they’d first arrived. Felicity had tried to convince them to call the police, but after Laurel had screamed at her, he gets why she stepped out. He’d just assumed that she had gone home. He didn’t think she’d been sitting out here this entire time.
He watches as she pulls her phone out of her pocket and hands it to him.
“This is everything I could find,” she says. “The place is a drug haven. The cameras have all either been disabled or paint-balled by local dealers. I hacked into ARGUS and got a list of known archers. The list was about 20 people long. I tracked all burner phones in city limits and cross referenced their phone calls with known associates. I think I may have found a guy — Simon Lacroix. He calls himself Komodo.”
“That’s gotta be close to 10,000 phones,” Oliver says, watching her closely for any signs of exhaustion. But apart from the obvious signs that she’d been crying, she looks fine. “Please tell me you haven’t been doing this all night.”
“No,” she says. “That took me 2 minutes. The rest of the night, I’ve just been waiting.”
The two of them sit in silence. He’s itching to leave. To go after this Lacroix guy. However, it doesn’t feel right to just leave Felicity here in the stairwell when she’s clearly upset.
“Are we really going to leave Sara here?” she asks. He can see that she thinks it’s a terrible idea.
“Felicity—” he says, letting out a deep sigh. It’s not that he disagrees with her. It’s just that it’s not his call to make, it’s Laurel’s. “She doesn’t want Lance to know.”
“I know,” she says. “But if it were Thea, wouldn’t you expect us to tell you? No matter how badly it hurt?”
Oliver closes his eyes and tries to remind himself that it’s not Thea. That she’s off traveling Europe. She’s fine.
“Sorry,” Felicity says. “I just mean that—”
“Even if I agreed with you, it’s not our decision to make,” Oliver says.
“Pretty soon her body is going to start to decompose. It’s going to smell. And before too long, the neighbors will get suspicious and call the police. Is that really what we want?” Felicity asks. “We’re under enough heat as it is with the police finding the bunker at Verdant. The last thing we need is the Canary dead in Laurel’s apartment.”
“I don’t give a damn about protecting my secret right now,” Oliver says, looking at her like she’s crazy. It’s the last thing on his mind.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to come off like that. Of course that’s the last thing on your mind. I just… This is Sara we’re talking about. Your Sara,” she says. “She deserves better than this.”
“You’re right,” he says with an exhausted sigh. “I’ll talk to Laurel when she wakes up. Until then, I need to track down Lacroix.”
He stands up to leave, but Felicity grabs his wrist to stop him.
“How are you going to do that?” she asks. “Your suit was destroyed in the fire and SCPD has your bow and most of our weapons.”
He gives her a curious look. They haven’t had a lot of time to talk about the bunker getting destroyed and what that means for them, but clearly she’s already looked into it and knows exactly what the police have found. He’ll have to ask her about it later. Right now they have more important concerns — Sara.
“I don’t need a bow,” he says. He doesn’t tell her that between Waller and ARGUS, and Anatoly and the Bratva, Oliver knows about a 100 different ways to kill a man with his bare hands.
“Are you okay?” Felicity asks him. “I mean, that’s a stupid question. Of course you’re not okay. But, are you sure you want to go out there right now? Nobody would blame you if you needed some time. I can call Roy for you. He’d be happy to help.”
“No,” he says, a little too harshly if they way she recoils is any indication. “I’m fine. I just need to catch the bastard that did this.”
“Okay,” she says, with a nod of her head. There’s a deep sadness in her eyes, but he attributes that to them just finding out that their friend has died.
She stands up and gives him a kiss on the cheek, lingering there for a second. He can hear how controlled her breathing is, like she’s about to start crying again at any moment and is trying to keep it together.
He wants to say something to her, but there really isn’t anything to say. Sara is dead and nothing he says or does will bring her back. The best he can do is go out there and catch her killer and hope that provides everyone a sense of relief.
“I’m going to go tell Digg,” she says. “This isn’t news you should hear on the phone.”
He nods his head and walks with her down the stairs. When they get to the sidewalk outside, he reaches in his jacket pocket and hands her back her keys. She takes them without comment and gets into her car. It’s not until he’s watching her car turn the corner and he’s alone for the first time all night that it truly hits him.
Sara died because of the life she led. The life he leads. And one of these days, sooner rather than later, it’s going to be him that doesn’t come home.
That fear hits him harder than he expects. For years on the island he didn’t care whether he lived or died. His life had gotten so miserable, that he would have welcomed death with open arms. Even his first year back, he was reckless. His life didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was saving his city, keeping his promise to his father, and making sure that his family was protected.
This is the first time in a long time that he’s actually feared death.
Because now he has something to lose.
For a sliver of a moment, he allowed himself to be happy with Felicity. He allowed himself to picture a normal life for himself where the biggest stress in his day would be figuring out what restaurant to take her to. Or which tie she’d like best on him.
For a sliver of a moment, he’d allowed himself to dream about what it would be like to be Oliver Queen.
And if he’s being honest with himself, that scares him. Because the more he allows himself to be Oliver Queen, the less he finds himself wanting to be the Arrow.
****
Oliver grimaces and tries not to move as Digg stitches up his side. He’d almost had him. If he’d had his bow, he would have taken him out. Instead, Lacroix had shot him with an arrow and gotten away.
“I need to get my bow back,” he says.
“And another Kevlar suit wouldn’t hurt,” Digg says, pushing at his wound to emphasize his point. Oliver shoots him a dirty look.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think either is going to be happening anytime soon,” Digg says. “We can get you a new bow, but it’ll take a few days. You can’t exactly walk into the local archery store when the SCPD already found the bunker in the basement of your club.”
“I don’t care about that right now,” he says. “We need to catch this guy. The longer we wait, the more risk we run of losing him.”
The door to the apartment bursts open and Felicity comes rushing in with wide, panicked eyes. The dark circles under her eyes tell him she's gotten about as much sleep as he has. Which is to say, none at all. Oliver immediately rolls his eyes. He’d asked Digg not to call her, because the last thing she needs right now is the added stress of worrying over him. Clearly Digg had ignored him.
“What happened?” she asks, gasping when she sees him.
“It looks worse than it is,” Oliver tries to reassure her, but she simply glares at him.
“What happened?” she asks again, this time looking at Digg.
“Lacroix grazed Oliver with an arrow,” he explains. “It didn’t go that deep. He only needed a few stitches.”
“See, I’m fine,” he tells her, moving to sit up on the couch. He grabs his shirt off the back of the sofa and puts it on.
“You shouldn’t have been out there without backup. You didn’t even have your suit,” she tells him, raising her voice until Digg reminds her to keep it down because the baby is sleeping in the next room.
“I need you to find me Lacroix’s location,” Oliver tells her.
“No,” she says. “You need to slow down.”
“I’m fine. It was a graze,” he argues.
“You’re in no state to be out there fighting,” she says. “You’re going to get killed.”
Her words hit him hard, considering it’s the very thing he’s been worrying about all day long. How much longer it’ll be before his number gets called. If Sara can die this easily, then so can he, and he’s not ready.
However, he can’t stop right now. He’d made Laurel a promise and he intends to keep it.
“You’ve seen me fight with much worse,” he tells her, rolling his eyes.
“I don’t mean physically,” she argues, crossing her arms. “I mean emotionally. Clearly you’re not okay, or you wouldn’t have been injured.”
“I’m fine,” he repeats, grabbing her shoulders to make sure that she is listening to him. “Felicity, I need you to get me his location. It’s important.”
“How are you fine?” she says, tearing up. “Sara is dead. A woman you claimed to love is dead and you’re acting like it’s any other case.”
He feels like he’s just been slapped across the face. Does she honestly think that he doesn’t care about Sara’s death. Does she think so little of him that she doesn’t know how much he’s dying on the inside. That his grief is eating him up. But he doesn’t have the luxury of falling apart right now. If he grieves, then nobody else gets to.
“I made a promise to Laurel that I would find the man responsible for this,” he says, his voice starting to shake with emotion, but he hopes that it’s not noticeable. “She is counting on me to finish this job, so I that’s what I’m doing.”
Felicity shakes her head with a laugh, and she almost sounds bitter when she says, “Of course.”
He doesn’t know how to respond to that, but thankfully he doesn’t have to, because she shakes it off and continues talking.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Oliver,” she says. “Lacroix has ditched his burner phone and I’ve already hacked every database known and unknown looking for him. I’ve extended my search to include anything within a 100 miles of the city, but still nothing. He’s good. He’s not using anything electronic that we can track him to. And since he hasn’t killed anyone else in Starling City yet, I can’t even link his victims to figure out who his next target will be. The trail’s run cold.”
“Damnit!” Oliver says, causing Felicity to jump and Digg to glare.
“I know we’re all upset right now. We all loved Sara. And I want to catch this bastard as much as you do,” Digg says, raising his hands up. “But can we try to keep it down. Lyla only just got the baby to sleep.”
“Sorry, I just—” Oliver stops to run his hands over his face. He’s at a loss. He doesn’t know what to do here.
“Just find him, Felicity,” Oliver says, giving her a serious look. “Whatever it takes.”
Felicity nods, and though she doesn't look happy about it, he can tell that she’ll do what he asked.
“You should go check on Laurel. She needs you right now,” Felicity tells him. “I’ll call you when I find something.”
Oliver nods and tells them all goodbye before heading out.
****
Oliver sits in Laurel’s living room, silently watching over Sara while Laurel showers. He knows it’s impossible, but he keeps thinking that maybe, if he watches her long enough, she’ll wake up. She’ll tease them all for worrying so much and make a joke about how even death can’t stop her.
Oliver reaches out and puts his hand on the top of her head to smooth her hair away from her face and winces at how cold she is. She’s always run hot. He remembers sharing a bed with her and how she was always a furnace. They could never sleep under the covers when she’d be in bed because she was so warm.
This isn’t right. This isn’t how things were supposed to go for them.
There has to be more to life than a constant stream of death and destruction.
“How did we end up here?” he whispers, feeling his eyes well up. “This wasn’t supposed to be our life.”
He thinks back to his life before the Gambit crashed. He was so young and carefree then. While he would never wish to be that selfish asshole he was before, he often wishes that he’d never been exposed to the darkness in the world. It feels like any chance of happiness he had went away the second he was forced to kill for the first time. He wonders if Sara felt the same way.
She once told him that she looked into the eyes of the devil and she gave him her soul. He made a similar deal with Waller. With the Bratva. And for the longest time, he thought there was no way back from the decisions he’d made during his time away. Then he’d met John and later Felicity, and in time, he started to believe that he could be redeemed.
But there is no redemption in this lifestyle. There is only pain, loneliness, and death. If he continues on this path, he is going to die. It’s no longer a possibility. It’s an inevitability.
Sara believed in him. She believed there was still light in him. Something to be saved. She’d told him to find somebody that could help him harness that light, and the truth is, he has. In Felicity he’s found somebody who could help make him whole again, if he’d only let her.
Only, he can’t be with her and be the Arrow.
His phone rings, startling him out of his thoughts. He’s been expecting Felicity’s call. He’s been waiting for her to get him more information. After all, it’s been three hours. It’s never taken her this long to get intel before.
“What did you find out?” he answers the phone without bothering to look at the caller ID.
“Oliver?” Roy says. “I don’t know what to do. Felicity just passed out.”
“What?!” he asks, alarmed, sitting up in his seat.
“She was working on her computer, then the next thing I know she just starts sparking everywhere. It was like a damn lightning storm. Then out of nowhere, she passed out,” Roy says. He sounds frantic.
“Damnit,” he says, frustrated that she would push herself this far. That she’d do more than she was capable of. He thought they’d talked about overextending herself and she’d promised to take better care of herself. “She over exhausted herself. I’m sure she’s fine. She just needs to rest.”
As he says it, he tries to convince himself it’s true. After all, he’d been freaked out last night when she’d started sparking then later crying afterwards, and it turned out she was fine. This is clearly just something she does. It’s just a part of her powers that they don’t fully understand yet.
“No,” Roy says. “She wasn’t just exhausted man. She’s barely breathing.”
At Roy’s words, Oliver swears his heart stops.
“I tried waking her up and nothing,” Roy continues. “I don’t know what to do. She needs medical attention but the bunker got blown up… What do I do?”
“What do you mean she’s barely breathing?” Oliver asks, praying that Roy is just being overly dramatic.
Regardless, Oliver needs to check on her. He won’t be able to function until he sees that Felicity is fine with his own two eyes. He grabs his coat off the back of the chair and rushes towards the door.
“I mean, she’s barely breathing, man,” Roy says.
“Then why are you calling me and not 9-1-1?” he practically shouts. He throws open the door to the apartment and takes the stairs three at a time, moving as fast as he can.
His heart is pounding in his chest and all he can think about is, not Felicity, too.
He can’t lose her too.
“I can’t call 9-1-1, she’s a mutant,” Roy says, like that’s supposed to somehow mean something to Oliver.
It doesn’t. He doesn’t give a damn about the world finding out she’s a mutant right now. They can deal with that later. Right now, the only thing they need to worry about is making sure that Felicity survives the night. No secret is worth her life.
“I don’t care,” Oliver practically growls. “You hang up the phone and you get her to Starling General as fast as you can.”
“But Oliver—”
“Roy, I swear to god, I will put another arrow in you if you don’t hang up the phone right now and get her to the hospital,” he says.
“Okay, okay,” Roy says. “But you’re telling her this was your idea when she wakes up and chews me a new one.”
“So long as she wakes up, you can tell her anything you want,” Oliver says, hanging up the phone.
He feels like his heart is caught in his throat and he can’t breathe. This image of Felicity lying cold and lifeless next to Sara is flashing through his mind and it’s nearly paralyzing.
If something happens to Felicity, he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to go on. Losing Sara has been bad enough, but he had thought he would be able to survive it. He thought it would hurt like hell, but he’d survive because he’d have Felicity at his side to light his way. But if he loses her too…
This isn’t how life is supposed to happen. It’s not supposed to be one tragedy after another. He can’t keep living like this. He can’t keep watching the people he loves die. He wants so much more than this.
Oliver jumps on his bike and breaks every traffic law to get across town as quickly as humanly possible. He needs to be with her. He won’t be able to function. Not until he sees her.
When he pulls up to the hospital 16 minutes later, he breathes a sigh of relief when he sees Felicity’s car already parked in the parking lot. He parks his bike in the nearest spot, not caring that it’s in a tow zone, and runs inside in search of her.
When he finds Roy standing in the lobby without Felicity, he sees red.
“Where is she?” he demands, upset that Roy would leave her alone for even a second.
“They took her back,” Roy explains.
Oliver goes to push past him, intent on finding her, but Roy grabs onto his arm to stop him.
“They said we can’t go back,” he says. “We’re not family.”
“Like hell we aren’t,” Oliver says, glaring a hole into Roy’s skull until the boy finally lets go of his arm. It’s a smart move, Oliver would have broken his wrist if he had held only for even a second longer.
Oliver pushes through a set of double doors that lead to the examination rooms and a nurse runs after him, trying to stop him. He ignores her and begins opening every door in search of her.
“Felicity!” he calls out, desperately. He’s not sure why. He knows that if she’s really in as bad of shape as Roy had made it sound, she won’t be able to respond.
“Sir, you need to wait outside,” the nurse tells him.
“Not until I see her,” he says, pushing open more doors.
He hears the nurse call for security, but he ignores them. He doesn’t care about hospital policy. His family built this hospital back in 1905 and has paid for almost every major renovation the hospital has ever had. They can take their policy and shove it up their ass, he’s not going to stop until he finds Felicity.
He opens a door, and finally, he sees the blonde ponytail and familiar set of pink nails he’d been searching for.
“Felicity?” he says, rushing to her side. Her eyes are closed and she has a breathing mask over her mouth. Her face is pale and if the beeping on the monitors is any indication, her heart rate is slow. Unnaturally so. The doctor is busy attaching various pieces of equipment to her body, but doesn’t seem to be in any rush.
Rather than let that fill him with more rage, he allows it to comfort him. If the doctor isn’t in any rush, she must not be in any immediate danger.
“It’s okay,” Oliver says, reaching out to brush some stray hair out of her face and letting out a relieved sigh when her forehead is still warm, unlike Sara’s.
She’s still alive. She’s still with him. For now.
“You can’t be in here, sir,” the doctor tries to tell him.
“I’m not leaving her,” Oliver says.
It’s not a demand. It’s not a threat. It’s simply a fact.
“Once she’s stabilized and moved to a different room, we’ll come out and get you. But for now, sir, we need you to wait outside,” the nurse tells him.
“This is my whole world. Right here,” he says, his eyes never leaving Felicity, counting each rise and fall of her chest as a blessing. A sign that she’s still here with him. “And if you think I’m leaving here alone, you are out of your goddamned mind.”
The room is silent, but he can feel the doctor and nurse having a silent conversation that he can’t be bothered with. Right now, his only concern is Felicity and that steady rise and fall. Deep breath in, long exhale out.
Maybe Roy had overreacted. She’s over-extended herself before. She just needs some rest. She’ll wake up soon and he’ll be here when she does.
“If she crashes, you’re going to have to move so that we can work,” the doctor tells him, and Oliver recognizes it as the offer that it is. They are letting him stay.
“Of course,” he says, smiling in thanks.
“Stay with me, beautiful girl,” Oliver whispers, leaning over to kiss the top of her head. “I’m right here. Just stay with me.”
****
“How is she?” Roy asks, slipping into the room. The doctor has since left with the promise that he’ll return as soon as Felicity’s test results come back.
“The doctors don’t know,” Oliver says, eyes never leaving Felicity’s face. His voice is weak. Exhausted.
He’s dealt with a lot in his life, and somehow he’s always found a way to keep putting one foot in front of the other. But this day is weighing on him heavier than most. He doesn’t know how much longer he’s supposed to keep pressing forward when it’s clear that the world is screaming at him to stop.
A shark that does not swim, drowns.
Anatoly said it to him three years ago in an effort to help him move forward. It’s a mantra he’s said to himself many times since then that has allowed him to keep fighting even when it felt like it was pointless.
But today is the first day he truly wonders if he hasn’t been drowning this entire time. Anatoly wasn’t telling him to keep fighting at the time. He was telling him to get out. Maybe it’s time that Oliver finally took that advice.
“I need to tell you something,” Roy says, sounding scared and it catches his attention enough to make him look up from Felicity.
“I asked Felicity to find Thea for me,” Roy says.
Oliver gives him a curious look. He’s been calling Thea constantly for the last several hours, trying to get in touch with her. Something about seeing Laurel loose her little sister has made him desperate to hear Thea’s voice. To make sure that she’s okay, even though he knows she is. She’s been sending him texts of her escapades through Europe. But that doesn’t change the fact that he wants to hear the sound of her voice.
He assumes it’s the same for Roy.
“Thea’s in Italy,” Oliver tells him. “She sent me a text yesterday that she landed in Rome. She’ll call eventually. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“No she’s not,” Roy says, putting his hands in his pocket nervously and staring at her shoes.
“What do you mean she’s not?” Oliver asks.
“Thea isn’t in Italy,” Roy says. “Felicity tried to find her and couldn’t.”
Oliver stands up, letting go of Felicity’s hand. He can tell that he’s missing a big part of the clue, and as much as he needs to hear what is happening, the look on Roy’s face tells him that he isn’t going to like what he hears.
Roy pulls a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and hands it to Oliver to read.
“It was during the Siege,” Roy starts to explain as Oliver reads the letter in Thea’s unmistakable handwriting. His hands start to shake. “We were going to run away together, but I couldn’t leave without helping you fight. And when I came back she was gone.”
Oliver reads the final line of her letter. The words that tell him she’s never coming back.
How many people can he lose to this life, before there is nothing left?
“I’m sorry, Oliver,” Roy says. “If I had known that this would happen to Felicity, I wouldn’t have asked her to do it.”
Oliver takes a moment to process Roy’s words. So it was once Felicity started looking for Thea, on top of all the other things she was already doing for him to find Sara’s killer, that she passed out. It would be so easy to place the blame at Roy’s feet. He makes for an easy target. Oliver could punch him a few times and Roy would take it.
However, he knows that wouldn’t be fair. The blame doesn’t rest on Roy’s shoulders.
“It’s not your fault,” Oliver says. “You didn’t know. You trusted her to be honest about her limits. Hell, I trusted her to be honest about her limits, but I know better. Felicity is Felicity and I should have known… I told her to do whatever it takes and she did.”
The two of the sit in silence for a long time, lost in thought.
“She’s going to wake up, right?” Roy asks.
Oliver wishes that he knew, but the fact of the matter is, he isn’t so sure. After all, the world has already taken Sara and Thea from him in a single day, why wouldn’t it take Felicity from him as well. It’s like some kind of sick karmic payback for his long list of sins.
None of this would be happening — None of it — If it wasn’t for him and this oppressive darkness that follows him everywhere he goes.
****
“Mr. Queen, I don’t know how much you are aware of Ms. Smoak’s background…” the doctor tells him several hours later, once all of her test results have come back.
“If you’re asking me if I know that she’s a mutant, then the answer is yes,” Oliver says, looking down at Felicity, who is still unconscious.
He’s spent the last several hours just staring at her for any sign that she’ll be okay, but the only thing keeping him even somewhat sane is the steady beeping of the monitors telling him that even if her heart is beating slowly, it’s still beating.
When he touches her, there’s no static shock. When he runs his hand down her arm, there’s no trail of blue light. His Felicity is lost under a heavy cloud of whatever this is and he doesn’t know how to fix it. He can go out there and punch as many people as he likes, but it’s not going to make her wake up any faster. He feels absolutely helpless and he hates that feeling.
“The honest truth is that we don’t know a lot about treating mutants,” the doctor says, causing Oliver to look up at him. “Every mutation is different. Their biology is different from ours, which makes it difficult to know appropriate care to provide in situations like this.”
“What are you saying?” Oliver asks, feeling panic start to grow inside of him.“You don’t know how to help her?”
It’d been one thing when he didn’t know how to help. To know that even at a hospital surrounded by doctors, there isn’t anything that can be done? It’s not okay. He takes a deep breathe and tries to force himself to remain calm.
“I don’t know how to help her,” the doctor says. “But there are people I can call. Organizations that specialize in these kind of cases—”
“No,” Oliver cuts him off, his blood running cold at the word organizations.
Oliver still remembers how terrified that girl Caroline had been of Essex Corps that day he’d found out about Felicity’s abilities. He remembers how terrified Felicity had been. Felicity. The woman who isn’t afraid of anything.
He can’t let this doctor call anybody. He remembers Felicity’s words clearly.
There’s no shortage of people looking to take advantage of young mutants.
“No,” he repeats himself. “You aren’t calling anyone.”
“Mr. Queen, her heart rate continues to slow, and while it appears not to be having an ill effect on her health yet, I assure you it eventually will. If she were human, she’d be going into heart failure right now. There’s already question about what the lack of blood flow to her brain will do to her,” the doctor says. “We need to find somebody that can help her. I’m not that person.”
Oliver lets out a shaky breath as he tries to figure out what to do. He can’t put her at risk of being taken by an organization that will only lock her up and treat her like a lab rat. But he also won’t be able to survive it if anything happens to her.
“Is there anyone else we can call?” the doctor asks. “Her family, perhaps?”
Felicity hasn’t spoken to her mother in over seven years. She doesn't even know that Felicity is a mutant. Even if Felicity wanted him to call her mother, he wouldn’t know how to get in touch with her. Her father abandoned her when she was young. She has no siblings. He is her family. Digg, Roy… They are her family.
Then again, there is somebody that he can call. Somebody that she also considers to be family.
“I’ll make some phone calls,” he says. “Just… please don’t call anybody.”
“I can see that you love her,” the doctor says, putting a hand on his shoulder. “But I hope that you know what you’re doing. I would hate to see something happen to her.”
Oliver closes his eyes and wills the image of Felicity lying dead at his feet to pass. It takes more than a few controlled breaths, but eventually it does.
“She’ll be okay,” Oliver says, unsure who he’s trying to convince.
****
“Oliver, where are you?” Laurel asks him when he picks up the phone. “It’s been hours.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose to will away the oncoming headache.
This is too much. He can’t possibly juggle everything that’s on his plate right now. He feels like he’s being pulled in a million different directions, when all he really wants to do is curl up at Felicity’s bedside and cry.
“Have you caught her killer yet?” Laurel asks.
“No,” he says. “I’m at the hospital.”
“The hospital?!” Laurel says. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m here with Felicity,” he tells her.
Saying it aloud makes it all the more real, and he finds himself blinking back tears.
Felicity is lying unconscious in the hospital because she’d been trying to find Sara’s killer. Because he’d told her to do whatever it took, and she did. If she dies, he’ll only have himself to blame.
“Felicity?” Laurel asks. “What happened? Was it Sara’s killer? Did they get to her too?”
“What? No,” Oliver says. He’s about to tell her what happened when he remembers that Laurel doesn’t know about Felicity.
“She was admitted for heart problems,” he says. It’s not entirely a lie.
“Is she going to be okay?” Laurel asks.
“We won’t know for sure until she wakes up,” he says.
“So you’re just hanging out at the hospital waiting for her to wake up?” she says carefully.
“Yeah, Laurel,” he says, annoyed. “I’m waiting for her to wake up.”
Laurel doesn’t know that Felicity and him have started dating yet, but that isn’t an excuse. She knows how much he cares about Felicity. He isn’t just going to abandon her.
“Oliver…” She sounds exhausted and every bit as annoyed with him as he is with her at the moment. “Every minute that Sara’s killer goes free, they get farther away.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he snaps at her.
It’s not that he doesn’t care about catching Sara’s killer. He does. He just can’t be in two places at once. What does she expect him to do?
“You promised me that you’d catch this guy,” she says.
Oliver is tempted to scream that it doesn’t matter anymore. Not when Felicity’s life is hanging in the balance. But that’s not fair. Of course it matters. Sara matters. He just doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. It doesn’t feel right to leave Felicity’s side. And if he’s being entirely honest with himself, he has no desire to suit up and walk headlong into danger when everyone around him is dropping like flies.
“You’re right. I did promise. I’m sorry,” he says, trying to stop what he’s sure is about to be an epic argument. He’s known Laurel long enough to feel it coming.
“Whatever, Ollie,” she says, and he’s sure that she calls him that on purpose. Just to get under his skin. “I’ll just find the guy myself.”
He lets out an exasperated sigh, because she knows damn well that he’s not going to let her do that. She may have passed a few self-defense classes and have been to the local shooting range with her dad, but she is not in any shape to go head to head with a mercenary.
“Don’t do that,” he says.
“Why? You’re clearly no help,” she says. “I should have expected it. When have you ever cared about my family?”
“That’s not fair,” he snaps at her, feeling the last bit of of control over his temper finally snap. He’s going on 4 hours of sleep in the last 60 hours. He’s tired, he’s terrified, and he’s not going to stand here and let Laurel disrespect him.
“I loved Sara,” he says, his voice dangerously low, daring her to say otherwise.
“Yeah? And look where that got her, Ollie,” she says. “Look where it’s gotten Felicity. I’m glad I’m not a woman you love anymore, or I’d be dead right along with my sister!”
Oliver feels like he’s about to be sick. He takes a huge inhale through his nose and wills himself not to throw up. Laurel is upset. She’s grieving. It’s easier to lash out at him than it is to deal with the emotions she’s currently feeling.
She doesn’t mean it. If she had any idea what her words would do to him, she wouldn’t have said them. She’s a good person. She’s just grieving.
Still, it’s impossible not to think of Shado and how she’d died because he’d made a choice. It’s impossible not to see Akio’s tiny body, cold and lifeless as Tatsu sobs. Image after image pass through his mind of every person he’s ever cared about and how they’ve suffered because of their involvement with him.
Oliver struggles to catch his breath and he’s so lost in his memories that he doesn’t even notice Digg hanging up the phone and pulling him in a chair. Nor does he notice Digg pushing his head between his legs until he says, “Breathe, man. Just breathe.”
But he can’t. He can’t breathe when he’s just lost Sara, Thea has no intention of ever returning home, and he’s about to lose Felicity.
“I can’t be here,” he says, standing up suddenly, stumbling on his feet.
“Just calm down for me,” Digg says.
“No,” Oliver says. “I can’t watch her die. I won’t.”
He pushes Digg away and moves towards the elevator, desperate for some fresh air.