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There’s a shiver that goes down her spine when he slides the platinum band down her ring finger, but it’s not from the coolness of the metal. Instead, it’s from the look in his eyes, the certainty in her heart, and the fact that always is no longer a thought of paradise lost, but instead an affirmation of herself -- and her home -- being found.
She’s barefoot and in yoga pants and he’s got a splash of milk on his t-shirt from where he had been trying to pour them cups of coffee, page through City Hall documents that had accrued in their absence and make William’s lunch all at once, while the boy himself is cross-legged on the couch, his phone in his hand to document the moment, a plate of scrambled eggs and toast abandoned in front of him.
(The reality of the situation -- that they, with hearts overtaking heads and on roads that have only ever run right back to each other, had so rightly but recklessly forged ahead without some of the most important people to them by their sides as they did so -- had hit them as they approached the Starling city limits. The tension Oliver had been carrying as he steered his bike -- and his wife ; good God, would that ever stop sounding so ridiculous and so right? -- back toward their home had changed, and she’d noticed the change immediately. She’d moved one of her hands from around his waist down to his thigh, squeezing gently, and though she hadn’t said anything, he’d still heard her, pulling over onto an overlook spot above the bright city lights.
They’d spent the next ninety minutes planning their strategy seriously, step by cautious step, as though they’d be fighting with an arrow and a keyboard and not a ten-year-old boy, only to have William start laughing at their seriousness and safe place reassurances about six and a half minutes into their prepared speeches, arching what was clearly the Queen eyebrow and say, “Oh, my God, you guys, I’m fine. I think it’s cool you got married.”
Felicity’s ears had buzzed at that, relief skittering across her skin like Oliver’s fingers had the night before, and would for every night after, and the pit of worry in her stomach started to recede even as she said, “You’re sure? Because it’s okay to be mad. This is --” she’d glanced at Oliver, who had taken her hand in his at the same time she had reached for William’s -- “ You’re important. And your feelings about what goes on in this family are really important.”
Oliver had shifted even closer to her at this family , lacing his fingers in between hers so that she couldn’t see where one began and the other ended, and for all the things she’s learned in her life, she’d never felt one to be more true than that.
“I know,” William had said sincerely, squeezing her hand. “You could make it up to me by letting me pick out your cake flavor.”
Oliver’s brow had knotted in confusion. “Cake flavor?”
“Well, yeah,” the boy had said, “you guys are going to have a party, right? Eat, dance, show off your rings --”
“Oh, God, rings,” Felicity had muttered before she’d gone wide-eyed and rigid. “Oh, God, my mother.”)
The big to-do -- featuring the aforementioned Donna Smoak, who had probably annoyed every airline passenger she’d encountered on her way in from Vegas, what with the giddy screaming and the “my baby girl got married!” euphoria -- would be later that night, but they’d wanted to keep this just for them and William. They didn’t need an audience or the admittedly gorgeous short white dress Donna had included as one of the forty-two outfit suggestions she’d sent in between crying and heart-eyes emojis; they just needed each other, this home, this life lived, and most importantly, the life left to go.
There are no vows this time around either, just a revenant “I love you” that comes out of his mouth as he puts his lips to her fingers and her future to his name, and her -- in a Felicity Smoak first -- actually having no words whatsoever and just going up on her tiptoes and folding herself into the man that had walked into her cubicle with a laptop and a lie, and walked out six years and a lot of battles later, a victor holding her heart.
It starts to bother her, though, standing in that gorgeous dress her mother picked out, with William taking all the praise for choosing a great vanilla cream confection on one side and Oliver trying to get his sister to stop showing embarrassing baby pictures to the rest of the team on the other, that the words didn’t, and haven’t, come. She looks around the small gathering, belated even in its beauty, and wonders if it means enough. Because he means everything , and she worries the new piece of jewelry around her finger almost as quickly as she’s worrying this is less than he wanted; less than he deserves.
Yes, she had asked, but so had he, once upon two last chances ago, and though the ending feels good and right , it feels disingenuous to forget what’s been burned so that this phoenix can rise from its ashes. Does he still think she doesn’t want this? That had multiple worlds not been in jeopardy, her answer still would have been no?
Does he think this isn’t everything she’d never dared hope for; everything that’s made surviving worth the struggle?
Because this? This is something she believes in more than anything she has before. They? Are something even her genius intellect and the world at large could never explain fully. It, they , are beyond measure, beyond understanding sometimes. This is something they never thought they’d have, even in all their befores and durings and afters. Loving each other is the best thing they’ll ever do; fighting to get right here, the poetry after the pain, is the greatest thing they’ll ever achieve.
This is, in a world of wrongs, the most profound right she could ever hope for. It is the thing that kep t her hoping; that gave her the faith to keep fighting.
She knows it -- in her bones, deep beneath the scars that hurt a little less now-- but does he ?
There’s a synchronicity to what happens next, the way she puts her hand on his back as she interrupts; the way he turns in anticipation -- it’s like the holiday party two years ago, when she’d started to ask but couldn’t, still scared that the dream would turn into a nightmare if she woke -- and the fact that they’re interrupted -- this time by her mother, to shoo them onto the dance floor.
Felicity can only laugh when he looks down at her with a half-grin on his face and a teasing twinkle in his eye and says, “Feel like dancing with me now?”
(God, what that girl four years ago in a pink dress and his parents’ mansion, pissed out of her mind at him, would make of her now.
Hell, what about the woman in Nanda Parbat; would she still not change any of it?
Here, now, she realizes it doesn’t matter, because she already has.)
She feigns nonchalance as the perma-grin on her face grows again, handing her champagne flute to her mother. “I guess I don’t have anything better to do.”
He takes his hand in hers and leads her to the center of the room, and she lifts her arms to drape around his neck, her fingers playing with the hair that brushes the nape. She knows there’s much to say, even if she can’t find the phrasing yet, but as they just sway back and forth, she gets lost in the moment, in the way he’s looking at her, in the way the world falls away until it’s just the two of them again, promises made and kept.
She decides to add one more promise: she’s going to tell him, every day, that he is not just her choice but her only. And on the days she can’t speak that truth, she’ll still tell him by showing him, and she decides to start now.
She goes up in her heels and rests her forehead against his, cradling his face in her hands, eyes closing as she sighs long and contentedly, her lips barely brushing against his as she breathes him -- them; all of and only them -- in. His hand rests at the small of her back, pulling her even closer, and it’s so familiar. Because how many times have they held each other in pain and crisis? How many times have their kisses been goodbyes instead of hellos? How many times has the distance been a chasm to divide and not a reason to fight?
But that familiarity shifts. The things she knew like the back of her hand fade with the arrival of the band on her left ring finger. Because here they are. Here they stand, united and unafraid, because they are better together. They are the best together. They always have been, and now there is no doubt within anyone that they always will be.
Like before on the bike, he hears what she isn’t saying. She feels it when he understands, when he accepts the unadulterated truth: that not only is this the only place she’d rather be, it’s really the only place she could have ever ended up -- and it’s the only place she should have ended up. Because it’s not an end.
It’s their beginning.
fin