Chapter Text
Felicity
The world never stopped spinning. It never stopped, even though it fell apart. The world kept spinning, even though she couldn’t follow anymore, it went on without her. Days went by. Finals went by. Her head stayed focused on school, because not focusing on school broke her. Letting her mind think of him made her chest feel like it was going to explode. The tears fell without her controlling it. She couldn’t get it to stop, even though she tried. She tried to think about anything else, but it was harder than anything she had ever done. Letting go of him was the hardest thing she would ever have to do.
When they found his body on the side of a road a few miles outside Gotham, she could never hold on to any hope. She could never again hope she would see his smile in the hallways.
He had driven on the open roads outside Gotham, which was surrounded by forests. A deer had run in front of his car and he had steered away from it, only to drive into the forest and hit a tree. The car had been crushed. The forest and roads were mostly abandoned around there, so after telling his dad about the letter they had sent out a search party who had found him.
The whole school had taken the news hard, and everyone’s day was always affected by the lack of his presence.
Ronnie wasn’t doing too good. Having someone abandon you is one thing, at least then you know they’re okay. But now that he knew Oliver was truly gone, he felt it. He felt everything, and not even Felicity could help him. She couldn’t even help herself.
She stood in front of her mirror, checking that everything looked proper. Her black dress was like a sad song, and her face looked even sadder. Her hair was falling down in waves on her shoulders, and she had decided to leave the glasses and put on contact lenses. She breathed out, her breath coming out in stutters. She closed her eyes as hard as she could, and then walked out of her room. Her mom stood ready by the door waiting for her, and she looked at her with sympathy. She wrapped her arms around Felicity, and she could smell her mom’s perfume, reminding her of the nights she would get nightmares and her mom would save her from them by crawling into her bed and sleeping beside her and her perfume would always be a reminder that this was real life and nothing bad would happen. Her mom couldn’t save her from this nightmare. Because bad things do happen in real life, and we can try to avoid them, but they will always catch up with us.
“I’m so sorry, honey. God, I’m so sorry.” She felt her mom sob a bit as she hugged her.
She didn’t want to cry, at least not before the funeral. She wanted to go to the funeral looking nice.
The car ride to the funeral went by too fast, because she didn’t want to go to the funeral. She didn’t want to stand there and hearing someone else talk about Oliver like they knew him, because she was sure no one actually knew him like she had gotten to know him that last week.
The sun was shining even though this day would totally suck, and the graveyard was filled with people. People from school, and some people with really fancy suits, which she guessed was people from his dad’s firm. Robert Queen was standing in the first row, his eyes staring at the coffin. He turned his head and noticed her. He made a gesture with his hand for her to come over. She did.
“My condolences.” She said when she walked up to him.
“I should give you mine too, if I didn’t misread anything between the two of you.” His voice was sad, not like the one he had the other time she had met him. He looked about ten years older too, his eyes tired and filled with sadness. “I saved you a seat beside me, and one for your mother too.” He looked back at her mother who was talking to a woman who looked a bit like Oliver, and she assumed it was his mother.
“You didn’t have to… We have seats in the back.”
“You probably knew my son better than I did. Sit down.” His voice had this way of getting her to do as he said. She waved at her mother and sat down.
“I always knew he liked you.” He said after a while. His voice was low, and the murmur of people around them made it so that only she could hear it. “He always had this great smile whenever he came home after playing with you, one he never had with Tommy or anyone else.” He stared at the coffin again, and her eyes followed. The coffin was beautiful and white, with white and blue flowers. There was a photo of him next to the coffin, one of him with the great smile he had.
The priest started talking, and eventually people got up and read some eulogies for him. She could see his sister sniffing and wiping tears from her eyes, and she looked about nine years old. His mother spoke about it, but it was descriptions of him that didn’t fit the person he had become in his last years.
It was all so unbearable. The grief was hammered into her chest like a nail, and it was stuck there reminding her that it hurt. The tears came again without her controlling it, but she let them. She let them fall as long as they had to, because it didn’t make her feel any better but it did make her feel like a person. It made her feel like she was a person and not just this shell she was afraid she was going to become after having to let him go.
She stayed at the graveyard in the car alone for a long time after the funeral. She just sat there, staring at the road ahead of her that she refused to drive further on.
There was a knock on the window, and someone opened the door and sat down in the seat beside her. It was Tommy.
He looked at her, and then put his head against the headrest. His eyes were red from crying and his hair was a bit messed up, but he still looked like Tommy, the usual self-centered person he was. He didn’t say anything to her, and she didn’t say anything to him, because she didn’t know whether to kick him out or kick him out.
“This sucks.” He said after a long time. She didn’t answer, why should she? “This fucking sucks.” Tears fell from his eyes, and she saw how hurt he looked.
“Why are you here?” She said in an angry voice.
“Look, I know you hate me…” He started, but she interrupted him.
“I don’t hate you, Tommy. I just don’t want to see your face here.”
“He was my friend too, and I know that I hurt him and that what I did was horrible, but even then I have a right to say goodbye to him, because he died. He was my best friend.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“Maybe I wasn’t his in the end, but he was mine.”
“I’m not saying you don’t have a right to say goodbye, I’m just saying that I don’t want to see your face right in front of me here. I don’t want to be reminded of the horrible thing you did to him, and how hurt he was because of it. I want to remember him happy, not hurt.” The tears started falling from her eyes too.
“He might not have told me, but I know he loved you. I know because when we used to play together I could see it in his eyes. Something so innocent and pure, it had to be love.” He sighed as another tear fell. “I never got to say how sorry I was. I never got to explain myself either.” That was the last string.
“You didn’t get to explain yourself?” She yelled at him. “What fucking reason could you possibly have for sleeping with his girlfriend for a year behind his back?” He looked at her with wide eyes.
“I know it’s not a good reason for him to ever forgive me, but I saw that he was loyal to Laurel. I saw that he was never going to break up with her unless he saw the real person she was. She told me that she loved me once, but that she wouldn’t give up Oliver, she never loved him, she used him. So I slept with her, in hopes that I could show him that being with her was a mistake while the perfect girl for him was right next door.”
“You could have told him instead of sleeping with her for a year. Why did you keep that up, if you didn’t love her back?” It started raining heavily, the drops crashing against the windshield. Tommy stared into the rain as he spoke.
“Because I needed her, in some ways. I didn’t love her because I knew who she was, but it became some sort of mix between addiction and hope that he would catch us.”
“You wanted him to catch you? I’m sorry Tommy but that sounds like the worst bullshit I have ever heard. Who complies a shit plan like that?”
“I knew he would be hurt and mad. I just hoped I would be able to explain and for him to understand at least some of it. I knew he would never be my best friend after that, but I knew our friendship was doomed anyways. He always talked about leaving, and I love this city.”
“You were right, it’s not a good reason.”
“I know. At least now you know it. Maybe that’s some relief to me now. Goodbye, Felicity.” He smiled at her, the best he could, and got out of the car. She stared at him walking slowly away. There she saw Oliver’s true revenge plan: the pain Oliver felt would never be as big as the pain and guilt Tommy was now feeling. He would carry it for the rest of his life, and Oliver had known that.
She could see Ronny running towards her car with his hands over his head. He was wearing a black suit with a black shirt and tie. The rain made it look impossibly darker.
He got inside and sat beside her, letting go of a heavy sigh.
“I’m sorry, I was going to go to the reception but I needed to give you something first.”
She looked at him with confused eyes.
“What?” She saw him reaching into one of his inner pockets, and pulled out an envelope. He handed it to her and she saw Oliver’s writing on it, he had written Ronnie.
“What is this? Why are you giving it to me?”
“I got it in the mail yesterday, and I didn’t read it until this morning. It’s a letter from Oliver to me that he apparently sent weeks ago, but you know how postal stuff can mess shit up. It was for me, but I think it’s more important for you to read it.”
He was about to get out of the car when she grabbed his arm.
“Please stay, I don’t want to be alone when I read it.” He nodded and closed the door again.
She pulled out the piece of paper and folded it out. Before she read it she closed her eyes, and Ronnie grabbed her hand and held it.
“Go on, Felicity. Read it.” He gave her a nod and a slight smile, but she saw the tears in his eyes.
She read it.
Ronnie,
I’m sorry I just left like that. Now that I am so far away I realize I should have told you first. I realized I might have hurt some of the people closest to me, but that’s the thing about humans; we ruin everything good, and if not immediately then it is bound to happen some day. We, the humans, are the most brilliant mistake the earth has ever created.
There are actually a lot of things that I should have told you about and talked to you about. So I’m going to tell you the most important story of my life: Felicity Smoak.
Our story began one day when I moved right beside her house. Her blue eyes looking into mine through her squared glasses. As I got to know her, I realized she was the greatest mystery of my life. We grew apart one day, setting ourselves in different paths. However, one faithful night I climbed into her window and got her on our first adventure in many years. She danced with me that night, and it’s my greatest decision I have ever made. Sometimes in life we can see where we are headed, and sometimes we go in blind. We can either succeed or fail. I succeeded. Out paths crossed once more.
That week was the happiest one in my life.
Every songwriter is a poet, and I’m so happy that I have gotten the chance to be able to be a part of writing her song. I’m so happy that I was able to become a poet and write her beautiful song, even if just for a week.
I realized that each day I had been searching for her smile, a great smile like that first day we met. The smile that made my heart skip a beat. I love her, man, and I swear I do.
We might go our separate ways again, things might happen too. We can never know for sure how our futures turn out. But I hope our paths crosses once more, and I hope it continues as one path. I hope we can write our songs together again.
The unknown is a mysterious thing, and maybe some day we will leap out of it and find ourselves, like I did with Felicity. Maybe one day we will know, like I knew my greatest desire was happiness, and that she was always the solution.
And I hope she smiles, that beautiful smile of hers. Even when I’m away or gone, I hope she smiles. I hope she’s happy. That’s all I want for her.
God, I hope she smiles.
As she finished the letter, her eyes stared out the window for a while. After a while she tugged the letter to her chest, feeling her breathing. Then she smiled. She smiled because maybe now she could go on, hoping their paths might cross again after all. Somehow she believed it could happen.
And yes, her smile was almost the smile she had the first time they had met.