Chapter Text
She dreamed of Oliver.
She heard his voice loud and clear. He was calling out her name, begging for her to save him, as he was fighting for his life. The raging storm sent the ocean into wild movement. The water pulled Oliver down again and again, keeping him under the surface longer each time. Oliver continued fighting his way to the surface every time, giving everything he could to survive this.
The struggle for survival left its mark on him, though. His lungs burned with the need for more air as the time he had over the surface grew shorter and there was barely time to take in a single full breath. The desperate need of oxygen grew until his calls for her turned into whispers and finally ceased completely. His arms and legs started hurting with the effort to move, growing heavier with each movement, until the pain paralyzed him. He couldn’t feel his arms or his legs anymore and he felt himself disconnecting from his body. The water dragged him back under and pulled him deeper and deeper into the darkness.
Everything became quiet. So deep under the water that there was no more howling of the wind and no more thunder to be heard. It was deadly silent, frightening in a way but also peaceful in another. Oliver wasn’t fighting anymore. He was floating in the water, unmoving. He had given up fighting and accepted death. He knew in the little part of him that was still conscious that these were his last seconds. He wasn’t going to get back to the surface again. His body would rot at the bottom of the ocean, never to be found and brought home for his loved ones to bury.
Closing his eyes, he was trying to fight the need to release the little air that was still in his lungs. He recalled his happiest memories, the ones of his family. He knew this was his last breath, so he wanted to hold onto it for as long as possible. The urge to release it grew quickly, though, and he used his last breath to whisper her name into the water. If he died, he wanted to die with her name falling from his lips. Her name, happiness, should be the last word he would say.
She reached out her hands for him in the water, longing to touch his face and tell him that everything was going to be alright and that he was going to come home to her like they had planned. She got closer and closer to him, but it was never close enough to touch him. He was right in her reach, but whenever her fingers were about to touch his face, the water moved him out of her reach again. She whispered his name desperately, wanting to wake up and fight to get to him, so they could find their way out of this together.
Finally the water pushed her close enough. She put her fingers to his face, shaking his head to get him to wake up. He had to open his eyes and-
When suddenly his eyes opened, she flinched away. His fingers wrapped around her wrists, though. His fingernails clawed into her skin forcefully and kept her from moving away. He stared at her with dead, blue eyes that showed no sign of life. He pulled her closer until her nose almost touched his. Then he whispered with a voice so cold that it sent a violent shiver down her back, “Why didn’t you save me?”
Felicity’s eyes snapped open and she sat up in bed abruptly. Tears were welling in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. Her lips were wide open in a scream of shock, but no sound came out. She felt her lungs burning for air and tried to take in a deep breath, but her throat felt choked. She reached her hand out for Oliver, needing to feel him, but all she felt was the cold and empty sheet on the other side of the mattress.
As her fingers clawed into the fabric, a choked sob escaped her lips. She slumped back into the mattress as her whole body started shaking violently. She buried her face in her pillow, silencing the loud sobs that were falling from her lips.
It had been almost a year since the Gambit had gone missing in a storm and these kinds of nightmares had started haunting her. At the beginning they had been tormenting her whenever she had closed her eyes. She hadn’t had to be deeply asleep for that to happen. Just closing her eyes to relax had been enough for one of her nightmares to play in her head. By now the nightmares were coming less often, but when they came, they seemed to hit her even worse, especially in nights like tonight when a storm was going on outside.
The rain was pelting against the window and the wind outside was howling. It sounded just like in her dream and it had probably triggered this nightmare tonight.
Slowly Felicity’s breathing calmed down. Rolling onto her side, she grabbed the pillow from the other side of the bed, and cradled it to her body. She felt the need to squeeze her eyes shut, but didn’t dare to do so. She was too afraid of what images would pop up in her head if she did, so she didn’t close her eyes and just took in deep breaths through her nose before releasing the air through her slightly opened lips. The technique had acquitted itself to help her through the panic attacks that followed her nightmares.
Felicity felt her heartbeat coming down and her breathing returning to an even rhythm slowly. Her body was still tense, slightly trembling in the aftermath of her nightmare, but she felt the muscles loosening more and more with each new breath. Only now she dared to close her eyes for a long moment.
“You couldn’t have saved Oliver,” Felicity whispered to herself, trying to let her husky voice convince her, “and what happened to him was not your fault.”
She repeated the words over and over again until she felt them sink in enough for her to pretend that she believed them. Then she opened her eyes again, taking in another deep breath, and sat up slowly. She reached out her hand for the small lamp on her nightstand and switched on the light.
Felicity took in another deep breath to gather her courage to look at the empty side of the bed. She moved the palm of her hand over the cold sheet slowly, feeling the longing for the person who was missing there rising inside of her. Since she didn’t have the strength or the courage to face the pain of missing him right now, she leaned back against the headboard of the bed and pulled the pillow back to her chest.
In almost one year not much had changed. She still loved him. She still missed him. She still felt his absence a thousand times each day. She even still had the same trouble to think his name or say it out loud, afraid the pain of knowing that she was never going to see him again would rip her apart.
The only times she did see him was in her nightmares, at least in three of the five nightmares that plagued her in uncountable versions with slightly different elements. The versions of this nightmare, the one about the night the Gambit sunk, were probably the worst ones. They left her breathless like she had been indeed down in the water with Oliver.
Then there were nights that she dreamed about the evening he had told her about his father’s offer to join him on the Gambit. They rarely ever ended the way they were supposed to with Felicity telling him that he shouldn’t go. Instead she let him go, even urged him to go because she felt it was a good idea and Oliver died.
Some nights she dreamed about finding him again on an isolated island. She would be so relieved that this miracle was really happening and she was getting him back despite the probability for this happening. Instead of hugging her and telling her how relieved he was to have her back, he would pull a beautiful, skinny brunette to his side and tell her how he had spent the last year with this nymph and wasn’t ready to come back and leave her yet. It was the weirdest of the dreams and also the easiest to calm down from. Knowing that they had made jokes about a possible shipwreck and how he would spend years with another woman still stung, but those dreams felt so surreal that Felicity could push them away more easily than the rest.
Other nights she didn’t see him in her dreams. Sometimes she dreamed of the day they had buried two empty coffins in the garden behind the Queen Mansion. Every once in awhile she had ended up buried six feet underground with him. All she wanted to do was drop a little bit of newly dug earth onto the coffin since it was a Jewish custom, but then she would slip and end up in that hole with the coffin. Nobody helped her out. They just filled the grave with more earth until she was buried beneath in the darkness.
Finally there were nights she dreamed about the first time Mae had called his gravestone ‘dada’. That one probably hurt the worst because it wasn’t just a dream. It was a memory and her nightmares made her live through it again and again and again. Felicity remembered very clearly how she had felt like her daughter had accepted her daddy’s death when this had happened. Rationally she knew that her baby girl wasn’t old enough to understand the concept of death, but there wasn’t much rationality involved when you were mourning a loved one’s death.
Felicity rubbed her palms over her face for a moment, getting rid of the tense feeling on her skin that the dried tears had left. When she glanced at the alarm clock on her nightstand, she bit down on her bottom lip and wondered if it was too late to call Tommy in Starling and ask him how his day with Mae had gone. She knew that even with the time difference, it was long past her daughter’s bedtime, so she would probably be in her crib in the Queen Mansion and Tommy would be back at his Dad’s, but hearing that her baby girl was fine and had a good day with her Uncle Tommy would surely help her fall back to sleep later when she dared to close her eyes for longer than a few seconds again.
She should have brought Mae with her to Boston Felicity thought to herself as she grabbed her phone and contemplated calling Tommy. She had decided against bringing Mae with her because she hadn’t wanted to put Mae through the flight to Boston and back to Starling with only the weekend in between, but she missed not having Mae around her. Just seeing her daughter or hearing her breathing through the baby monitor always helped to ground herself after a nightmare.
Felicity bit down on her bottom lip and turned her phone in her hand again and again, still considering calling Tommy. She knew that Mae was in good hands with him, the Queens and her own family. Otherwise she wouldn’t have left her daughter with them while she had been forced to come back to Boston for some exams. It wasn’t even the first time she had left Mae with them while she was in Boston to do something for her studies. She just needed to hear once more that her little girl was okay, especially after a nightmare like this one.
Just when she was about to call Tommy, her phone vibrated in her hands. Felicity frowned as she looked down at the display, but then she released a breathy chuckle. Without any hesitation she took the call.
“Do we have some telepathic connection now or did you secretly learn how to hack phones that you knew I was going to-“
“Felicity?”
Immediately she fell silent. The sound of Tommy’s husky voice saying her name in an urgent tone had to mean something serious. Last year her name had been said like that often, whenever there had been any news about what had happened with the Gambit really. and whenever people had felt they needed to push her into doing something they knew she wasn’t ready for.
Felicity, the Gambit went down.
Felicity, they don’t think there are any survivors.
Felicity, they have stopped searching for them.
Felicity, you have to accept that Oliver is dead.
Felicity, I think it’s time to say goodbye to Oliver.
Felicity, I don’t think Oliver would have wanted you to be alone for the rest of your life.
Felicity, you have to move on from Oliver.
Felicity,-
“Felicity?”
“I’m here,” Felicity whispered.
She felt her hand clenching into a fist around her blanket and she took in a deep breath to prepare herself for what Tommy had to say. She had been through so much. It couldn’t be worse than everything she had been put through already, could it? Well, she figured it could be if anything had happened to Mae, but she refused to even let that thought sink into her heart. Felicity’s fingers tightened around her phone to a point where she almost felt she would break it. Yet Tommy still didn’t speak.
“Tell me,” Felicity whispered barely louder than a breath. “You have to tell me what happened.”
“They found him.”
Tommy’s voice was loud and clear, but Felicity had trouble understanding. She had understood each word, but in conjunction with one another they seemed to make no sense. She just didn’t understand. Who had they found? And who were ‘they’? What- why had he called her in the middle of the night? What was going on here?
“Felicity,” Tommy whispered and there it was again, that seriousness and urgency in his voice, “they found Oliver.”
Felicity frowned. Though Tommy had now explained who had been found, it just didn’t make any sense. Actually, it seemed to make even less sense than before. How would anyone have found Oliver? After one year in the ocean Felicity doubted that there was much left of him that could be found. She had once wanted to google how a body rotted in the ocean, but her fear of what she would find had been stronger than her need to know.
“Felicity, did you hear me?”
“Yeah,” Felicity whispered. “Yeah, I did.”
She wanted to say more, ask a thousand questions, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She knew that if she let in the hope that maybe Tommy’s words were true, having that hope taken from her when it turned out to be wrong would simply destroy her. After the first three weeks that Robert and Oliver had been missing and searched for a hope that they would be found had kept creeping back into her thoughts again and again until she had forced herself to shut it out forever. Robert and Oliver were dead she had told herself again and again until the thought had settled and blocked any hope that could have been raised. It would have been too painful to allow that thought into her mind and having it crushed again and again because there had been no chance they could have been found.
“Where- When- Why-“ Felicity stopped, pressing her lips together.
She didn’t know where to start. She had a thousand questions that would hopefully help her to understand what was going on. She didn’t want to begin to hope until she understood what Tommy was really saying. She just needed more information to make sense of this, but there were too many unanswered questions for her to decide which one she wanted to ask first or which one would help her understand.
Tommy seemed to sense what was going on because he explained, “Apparently Moira got a call from someone in the U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai. They told her that Oliver had been found alive and is being brought back to Starling City as we are speaking. Of course Moira didn’t want to believe them, but the consul assured her that any mistaking is ruled out. They did a DNA test to confirm it and I don’t know what happened next or what they did after, but Oliver is on his way back to Starling City and Moira is already on her way to the hospital and… Felicity, he’s back. Ollie is back.”
Felicity took in a deep breath to say something, but she didn’t know what to say.
They had done a DNA test. That meant they had proved that it was Oliver beyond a doubt. He had been found. He was back in Starling City or at least on his way there. He was alive. Alive.
“I… Where is he now?”
“He’ll be brought to Starling General as soon as the plane has landed in an hour or two. Like I said, Moira is already on her way there to be there when he arrives. She asked me to call you. As soon as we hang up, I’m going to the mansion to get Mae and take her up to the hospital, too. I am sure Ollie can’t wait to see his little girl again and-“
“I need to get back to Starling City,” Felicity interrupted him. It only took a second for her to jump out of bed, get her suitcase and start to throw her clothes into it carelessly. “I need to come back and see him. I won’t believe it until I have seen him and-“
A loud rumble of thunder interrupted her. The storm that was going on outside was a severe one. When she had been gone to bed a few hours ago, the news had reported that flights in and around Massachusetts were canceled because of the storm that was supposed to last until around noon.
“I- I don’t know if I can come home,” Felicity said, already thinking about the other options available to get her home as soon as possible. “I- I will- I will just go to the airport and try to catch the next flight and-“
“You can call Oliver and-“
“No, I need to see him with my own eyes and touch him and…”
She had only said a few words, but she already felt out of breath. The mere thought of knowing that there might be a chance, a very real chance actually, that she could see Oliver again, made her heart race and took her breath away. She was nervous but also kind of excited, then again really scared and…
“He’s really back?” Felicity whispered.
“Yes, yes he is,” Tommy reassured her. “He’s really back.”
“He’s really back,” Felicity repeated.
She said those words, heard them coming out of her mouth, but she still couldn’t really believe them. She had closed herself off against this possibility for so long that it wasn’t easy to break down all the walls she had built up to shield herself from any false hope. Tommy’s words sounded like he honestly believed that what he was telling her was true and Felicity knew he would never lead her into false hope, so she wanted to believe him and believe his words, too.
“I… uhm… Can I leave you alone?” Tommy asked. “I really want Ollie to see Mae and-“
“Sure,” Felicity hurried to say. “You get Mae and see Oliver and I… I will try to get back to Starling City as soon as I can.”
“Okay,” Tommy replied. “Just keep me updated on your flight and everything and I’ll tell you how Mae’s first time back with her daddy went.”
“Okay. Give Mae a kiss for me.”
“Sure. Bye Felicity.”
“Bye.”
Felicity hung up and sat down on the edge of the mattress. She frowned deeply, still trying to process. Five minutes ago she would have laughed dryly at anyone who would have told her that there was still a chance for Oliver to be alive and now she was supposed to believe that it was true.
Puckering her lips, Felicity lifted her hand and pinched herself in the ribs hard.
“Ouch!” She squeaked at the pain and quickly rubbed her fingers over her maltreated skin to sooth the it though she doubted that it was going to stop the contusion she could already feel building there. “Okay, obviously this is not a new kind of nightmare.”
This was no nightmare she could wake up from. Well, a lot would consider this a wonderful dream instead of a nightmare, but knowing how she would feel if this was suddenly not real, she considered it a nightmare. Only that it wasn’t a nightmare. This was real. Oliver was really back.
Felicity took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. It took all her strength and courage, but slowly she let down the walls she had put up these past months and let the thought in.
Oliver wasn’t dead. He was alive and he’d be back in her life. He’d be back in Mae’s life. They would be a family again.
Felicity felt a sob rising inside of her and it escaped her throat before she could stop it. A wide smile spread on her lips and for the first time in more than a year, for the first time since Mae’s birth probably, Felicity cried from joy.
She was really getting him back and Mae was getting him back and… and it felt like finally all the little pieces of her life that had been shattered apart when she had lost him, were melding back together as one again. She was becoming whole again after she had felt like she was only a mess of a thousand scattered pieces of herself for the past year.
Now she just needed to see him as soon as possible Felicity thought to herself. She quickly wiped the tears from her face and continued throwing everything she needed into her suitcase. She would head to the airport immediately and do whatever was necessary to get back to Starling City as soon as possible. She didn’t want to waste any more time than what was absolutely necessary to get back home and so she could see Oliver again now that she finally had him back.
Oliver was back. She couldn’t think it often enough. Oliver was really back. He was coming home and they would be a family again. She would have him back with her and Mae and now she would make sure they would never be parted again.
He was home again, well, at least he was almost home again. He was as close to home as he had been in almost a year.
The city looked almost the same as when he had last looked at it. It was quiet, only silhouettes of the high buildings visible in the dark of the night. There was still light in some windows, but it didn’t look like many people were awake nonetheless. It was almost like he was the only one still awake, watching over the city he had missed so much these past months.
Ten months, three weeks and one day. That was how long it had been since he had left Starling City. At the beginning he had counted the nights to keep track, but when his hope of ever being rescued had decreased, he had stopped counting or maybe he had just lost track of his counting. Oliver didn’t remember anymore. Eventually he had lost all sense of time while he had been away because every second had felt like a decade. Only when he had been taken to Hong Kong had he really realized how much time had passed.
Oliver remembered the night before he had left for the boat trip. He hadn’t been able to sleep. He had been too nervous about leaving his family and, at the same time, too excited about finally getting to spend the quality time with his dad that he had always wanted. He had watched over the city through the window of his room in the Queen Mansion and realized that in a way Starling City would always be his home, but that Boston had been his home, too. He had struggled with that thought for a long time, but he had finally realized that home could be any place in the world for him as long as Felicity and Mae were there with him.
He felt his throat burning at the thought of them. Felicity and Madeleine. They had been the reason he had kept fighting these last months and the reason he had never given up. He had wanted to give up so often, but he had known that he owed Felicity and Mae to do his best to get back home to them. God, he had missed them so much. Every fiber of his heart had ached with every single heartbeat to be reunited with them again.
Oliver squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He could still see Felicity and Mae the day he had said goodbye to them at the pier. It was supposed to only be a goodbye for a few weeks, but it had turned into a goodbye for several months for him and a goodbye for like forever for them. During his flight back to Starling he had caught up on some things that he had been able to found in the gossip magazines he hated so much, so he knew that he had been pronounced dead a month after the Gambit had sunk.
He quickly wiped away a tear that was rolling down his cheek. Thinking about how Felicity, his mother and Thea must have felt, thinking he was dead, it was unbearable. He had tried not to think too much about how it must have affected Mae, telling himself that she was just too young to understand the concept of death, but he knew that it must have affected her life, too. He didn’t like to think about it because his baby girl was supposed to have a perfectly easy life without any worries, but he knew that there was no way that it hadn’t affected her life.
At that thought, Oliver felt his thumb rub against his other fingers nervously. Mae had started saying ‘dada’ right before he had left. How many more words could she say now? How well could she walk? How did she look now? What was her day like? What food did she like and what didn’t she like? What ritual did she have for bedtime and when-
“Oliver?”
He felt his shoulders tense slightly. His hand tightened to a fist for a long moment before he forced the muscles in his fingers to relax. Then he turned around to see his mother standing at the door, looking at him with soft eyes. After a moment of hesitation Oliver approached her and his mother came closer at the same time. They met halfway in the middle of the room.
His mother looked older than the last time he had seen her. The last year must have stolen several years of her life span. Losing her husband and her son in a tragic accident like that must have been terrible for her. He wished he could tell her that everything was going back to normal now, but Oliver doubted that anything would be normal again anytime soon. He also couldn’t give his mother her husband back. He was lost to her forever and it was his fault.
“Mom,” Oliver whispered.
There was a part of him that wanted to tell her so much more, tell her how sorry he really was, but no more sound came out and before he knew it, Moira was already spreading her arms and pulling him close to her carefully.
“Oh, my beautiful boy,” she said, tears audible in her voice.
Oliver wrapped his arms around her waist and ducked his head, resting his face against the side of her neck for a moment. It felt good being back with his mom and to get the chance to let her know that he didn’t hate her because he doubted that he had ever made that clear since what had happened when Felicity had been pregnant and Moira had offered her money to leave him. His mother had done her best to show that he and Felicity could trust her and Oliver had tried to do his best to get over his anger. He had had trouble forgiving his mother for that, though. Only during his time away had he realized that he had forgiven her. Eventually he would get to tell her as he had hoped he would during these last months, but tonight was just not the night for that.
All he wanted tonight and all he wanted right now was Felicity and Mae. He had longed for them for so long. He couldn’t wait even another minute to see them again. Oliver pulled back from the hug carefully, giving his mother a short smile. He was already about to ask if they had come with her, or if at least Felicity had come since Mae was probably asleep and shouldn’t be woken up when-
“I am sure you actually want to see two other people right now,” Moira said, probably reading it in his face.
Oliver smiled apologetically, pushing his hands into the pockets of the sweatpants he had been given in Hong Kong. He hunched his shoulders slightly, puckering his lips and nodding his head. “Yeah, kind of.”
“Unfortunately, Felicity is not in Starling City right now.”
“What?”
The only reason why he had decided to be taken to Starling instead of Boston was because he had read that Felicity and Mae were currently living here. Apparently Felicity was serving an internship at Queen Consolidated for her studies. If he hadn’t read of that, he would have told the consul that he wanted to be taken to Boston. As much as he loved his mother, who he really wanted to see were Felicity and Mae and-
“She had to travel to Boston for the weekend,” Moira explained, stroking her hand over her son’s chest. “Tommy called her and she is doing everything in her powers to get back to Starling City as soon as possible, but there are storms on the east coast, so all flights are currently canceled. She is waiting at the airport for the next flight and will call us as soon as she knows when she will be back.”
Oliver nodded slowly. “I understand.”
He understood indeed and the last thing he wanted was for Felicity to get onto a plane or anything when there was a storm going on. A storm had been the very reason they had been apart for so long after all. It didn’t mean that Oliver had to like the fact that she and Mae weren’t here, though. Since he had made it to Hong Kong and they had promise to get him home, all he had been able to think of was seeing them again. It was all he had wanted these last months.
“I’ll see them soon enough, right?” Oliver asked quietly.
He didn’t really believe it. There was no soon enough if it wasn’t now. He knew that he wouldn’t get to see them now, though, so he guessed lying to himself and doing his best to convince himself of the lie was the only thing he could do. He really didn’t have another choice. He had made his way back to Starling City. Now all he could do was wait to see Felicity an Mae again.
“Well, you will have to wait a little longer to see Felicity again,” Moira told him, “but right before I came into your room, Tommy arrived at the hospital and he brought Madeleine with him.”
Oliver’s heart skipped a beat and his voice sounded choked when he asked, “Mae’s here?”
Moira nodded. “Yes, she is here. Felicity didn’t want to put her through the flights to have her with her in Boston for the weekend, so she stayed in Starling City, so Donna and I could take care of her. When I got the call, saying you were alive, I called Tommy to tell him and ask him to call Felicity. Then Tommy and I both agreed that we should bring Madeleine here for you to see her. She can catch up on the sleep she is missing out on later.”
Oliver nodded, unable to form a word given the tight feeling in his throat. He felt his thumb rub against the other fingertips once more and his entire body tensed. He was feeling terribly nervous at the thought of seeing Mae again though he was also unbelievably excited. It had been too long since he had last seen his baby girl.
“Shall I get go get her or would you rather wait and-?”
“No,” Oliver hurried to say, the mere thought of not seeing Mae when he had the chance to sounding weirdly absurd in a way. This was one of the moments he had been waiting on for months now. He didn’t want to waste any more time. “I want to see her please.”
“I’ll tell Tommy to come in with her,” she said with a smile and hugged him close. “I will talk to the doctor in the meantime and ask him when we can expect you back home. I guess you and Mae could use some room and privacy to see each other again.”
Oliver nodded. “Thanks, Mom.”
She smiled at him once more before she walked to the door and left him alone to get Tommy and Mae. Oliver rubbed his hands over his face and took in a deep breath, gathering himself. He was going to see his baby girl again. After so many months of not seeing her and thinking he would never see her again, he felt a lot of tension at just the thought of seeing her again. He didn’t even dare to think about her walking towards him, so he could hug her and kiss her cheek. He would probably burst from pure joy.
When there was a quiet knock at the door, Oliver felt his heart jump into his throat. His thumb was rubbing against the other fingers furiously by now and he tried to press his palms against his thighs to stop the movement, but he couldn’t. When there was another knock, Oliver took in another deep breath. He knew he couldn’t freak out because if he freaked out, then so would Mae, but at the same time he was unable to stop the tension and nervousness he was feeling.
At the third knock he finally felt he had enough control over himself to reply with a hoarse voice, “Come in.”
When the door opened, he felt his breath catch in his throat and his heart skip a beat once more. Tommy stepped into the room, a huge smile on his lips, but Oliver only cast his best friend a short glance. His attention soon focused on the little girl on Tommy’s hip.
She was leaning against him with her head resting on his shoulder. She had definitely grown since he had seen her the last. She had lost a lot of her baby fat which made her face look thinner. At the same time her blonde curls had grown thicker. They protruded wildly in all directions, jumping up and down with each little movement of her head. She looked tired as her eyes were slightly reddened and she rubbed a hand over them since they were probably burning slightly from the tiredness. She sighed sleepily behind her pacifier and snuggled her cheek closer to Tommy’s shoulder.
Oliver felt a thousand different emotions running through him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this much joy. It had probably been the day Mae was born. At the same time he felt a stitch of regret, knowing he had missed half of her life now. He was angry at himself and the world that he had been deprived of being close to her for so long. He was terrified of what it had done to their relationship and hopeful about the future. The mix of all these emotions made his throat feel choked and his chest tightened.
“It’s good to have you back, Ollie.”
For the break of a second Oliver looked at Tommy, smiling at him. His eyes were drawn back to Mae immediately, though. She looked at him with her big blue eyes, just taking him in the way he took her in. His entire world seemed to revolve all around her in the moment and Oliver wondered if it was the same way for her. He took a cautious step toward them and immediately Mae lowered her gaze.
“Hey, Mae,” Tommy said quietly, re-adjusting the toddler’s position on his hip a little, so her face was on one level with his. “Look. Daddy’s back.”
Mae didn’t look at Oliver. She kept her gaze down stubbornly and sighed once more, frowning slightly like she was wondering why she had been woken up only to be taken to the hospital in the middle of the night.
“Yes, I know you are tired,” Tommy whispered into her ear, “but daddy’s here.”
Oliver smiled and whispered, “Yes, daddy’s here.”
He reached out a hand and stroked it over Mae’s head. Her curls felt even softer than he had remembered. They felt like velvet under his slightly calloused fingertips. Oliver could look at her like that for forever. He wanted to memorize every detail about her and how she looked now. He wanted to make sure that her face was forever burned into this memory the way it looked right now.
“She’s so beautiful,” Oliver whispered eventually.
“She definitely takes after her mother with that,” Tommy agreed. He bounced Mae up and down on his arm for a moment before he asked, “Do you want to say hi to daddy?”
He had already started leaning forward, moving to hand Mae over to Oliver, but the little girl released a loud cry. Her hand tightened around the neckline of Tommy’s shirt and she snuggled herself even closer to him. Her eyes stayed focused on the ground stubbornly. Tommy meanwhile wrapped an arm around her protectively like he wanted to give her a feeling of safety. It made Oliver frown slightly. Mae didn’t need any safety, at least not from him.
“She’s just tired,” Tommy explained quickly. “I basically woke her up when I got her out of bed and now she’s terribly tired. It will be easier when you see her again after she slept.”
Oliver nodded, watching Mae and Tommy. When he had left for the boat trip, his best friend had felt everything but safe around Mae. He had never held her. He had never been alone with her. He had full-heartedly accepted her as a part of Oliver’s life and supported him about her, but he hadn’t felt comfortable around her. Now they seemed so close. Mae was seeking Tommy’s closeness in response to Oliver’s touches like she needed Tommy to tell her that it was alright that Oliver was here.
Oliver felt a painful stitch of jealousy and even sadness at Mae’s rejection. He knew that she probably had no memory of him, but he had hoped that maybe the connection they shared as father and daughter would have made her recognize him in an emotional way. He realized that that sounded stupid, but he had needed that hope because thinking that his little girl didn’t recognize him anymore, like it seemed right now, just broke his heart even more than it had already been broken these last few months.
“Are you so tired that you can’t even be happy about daddy being back?” Tommy asked Mae, bouncing her up and down a little bit.
“Tommy,” Mae said clearly before mumbling something more Oliver couldn’t understand, especially since her words were muffled by the pacifier.
Tommy frowned. “You want to go to bed?”
Mae nodded and leaned her head back against his shoulder with a long sigh. She rubbed a hand over her eyes before she pulled back to look at Tommy once more and added some more mumble to her words before.
“Mommy is coming back as soon as she can, so you can’t sleep in her bed. You got your own bed, though. It’s much more comfortable when you have your own bed. You have so much more room. That way you can roll around and-”
Again Mae mumbled. Oliver understood some syllables, but not much.
“Okay, it’s been a long day for you, so Uncle Tommy is coming with you and you can sleep in his bed, okay?”
Mae smiled behind her pacifier, but it only lasted shortly before she leaned her head back against Tommy’s shoulder. Her hand loosened around the neckline of his shirt and started stroking over his cheek instead.
“Sorry,” Tommy said, shrugging his shoulders, “but I think she needs to go to bed. She is only growing grumpy and-“
“I understand,” Oliver interrupted his friend immediately.
Just like with Felicity not being here in Starling he understood that Mae belonged in bed right now. Just like with Felicity not being in Starling he also didn’t like that Mae couldn’t stay longer, though. He wished he could keep her here longer and try to get closer to her already. He knew that if Mae grew grumpy, he wasn’t going to achieve anything, though.
Tommy pressed his lips together for a moment before he sighed. “I wish we could have stayed longer, but maybe it’s better she gets to see you again when she has slept. Your mother went to talk to the doctor and check when you will be getting out of here and-“
“I’ll be released tomorrow,” Oliver explained immediately.
He had been checked through in Hong Kong and then again when he had arrived here in Starling City. The doctor had told him of the several bruises he had, the ones that were still fresh as well as the ones that were older and apparently hadn’t properly healed. Oliver hadn’t answered when the doctor had asked him how any of that had happened. He remembered how he had received each scar and how each of the bones, that the doctor had told him hadn’t healed properly, had been broken.
“Good,” Tommy replied with a smile. “Then I will personally make sure that the little princess here is well rested.”
Oliver nodded slowly, feeling another stitch of jealousy when Tommy kissed Mae’s cheek and she released a short giggle.
“Sounds good.”
Tommy nodded, looking at him for a long moment. “So I will see you tomorrow then?”
Oliver gave his friend a tense smile. “I guess so, yes.”
“Say goodbye to daddy, Mae,” Tommy whispered.
Oliver watched his daughter, but she didn’t move. She kept her head rested against Tommy’s shoulder and just looked at the floor. Tommy finally lifted one of her hands to wave at Oliver, but still Mae made no move. Oliver waved back at them awkwardly.
“Bye,” he whispered.
“Bye, Ollie,” Tommy replied.
Oliver watched Tommy carrying Mae out of the room, whispering soothing words into her ear at the same time. Tommy and Mae were close, which he thought he should probably like because his best friend and his daughter getting along well was something to actually celebrate. Oliver couldn’t suppress the feeling of jealousy, though. Tommy seemed to be so much closer to Mae than he was right now.
Quickly Oliver shook his head. He had been thought dead for the past year. He had missed a lot of Mae’s life and once he was caught up on everything he had missed and taken back his place in her life, their connection would grow again. He was Mae’s daddy and one of the two people closest to her after all. It would just take time to resume his place in her life.
Oliver closed his eyes and breathed out with a smile. He had finally gotten to see his daughter again. Only a week ago it had still felt impossible that this moment would ever happen and now he had seen her and stroked his fingers through her hair. Of course she was wary of him because she didn’t remember him and Felicity wasn’t there to tell her that it was okay and she could trust him.
“It just takes time.”
He whispered the words to himself, pushing away the thought that he had already lost as much time with Mae as it was. He knew that he could only win her back with patience, but it just couldn’t be soon enough. He would do whatever it took to make sure that his relationship with Mae would grow deeper again.
Oliver had gotten a second chance at life and he wouldn’t give that away.