Work Text:
Felicity looks up from the computer virus she’s writing to see it’s 4:45 pm.
“Shit shit shit.” She dives for her bag and drags out the tea light and lighter she’d barely remembered to throw in there this morning.
Felicity doesn’t observe Shabbat every week, because, well, she works 100 hours a week trying to keep her boys alive and kicking, but also because she’s just not that religious. But Mom calls once a week, and just this once, Felicity would rather not lie when she asks if Felicity had observed Shabbat like a good girl. Felicity’s feeling pretty proud of herself, actually. She observed, like, half of the High Holidays this year. Well. Mostly observed. She hadn't done as well with the other holidays. She couldn’t very well sit around during Passover while people were being executed on live television.
She likes to think God is understanding about that kind of thing.
“Baruch ato Adonoy,” she murmurs into her palms, riding out the vague embarrassment of her shitty pronunciation. The rest of the Hebrew words spill out clumsily, hot breath reflected back onto her face by her hands.
Mom was an Orthodox-turned-Reform woman. When she was 21, she married a blue-eyed Methodist musician and moved across the country. Dad left them a few years later, his guitar slung over his shoulder, and Mom threw herself--and Felicity--into religion with a renewed and bitter fervor. Felicity has memories of her mother murmuring prayers with her teeth clenched, sounding like she was cursing someone.
The memory of Mom's pursed mouth makes Felicity bite her lip and sigh. If she’s going to do this, she might as well do this.
So. Hey God. How’s it going. Long time no see. Or talk, rather, seeing as I don’t see you in the whole literal sense. So to speak. Um, if you’re feeling like doling out favors, I’d very much appreciate if you kept my friends from dying this week. Or any time soon, in fact. We’d like to keep catching bad guys and helping people. Hope you’re down with that. Also sorry in advance for coding on Shabbat, but it’s totally going to save lives in the long haul, I promise.
And, y’know, if you wanted to send the Messiah soon, that’d be cool.
But mostly, protect Oliver. Protect John. Protect Roy. Protect Sara.
Felicity leans into her palms and breathes out the sudden impulse to beg.
“Felicity?”
Felicity yelps, flails, and nearly falls down before she realizes it’s Oliver.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” He looks concerned, but then it’s hard to tell with his mask and hood still on.
“Did you—” Felicity voice comes out rough. She clears her throat. “Did you get the info you needed out of whats-his-name?”
“Yes.” Oliver tips back the hood and removes his mask. Yep, definitely concerned-face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Felicity supposes she must have looked rather dramatic, standing in the candlelight with her head in her hands. She flaps a hand at the candle. “I was praying. It’s a thing.”
Oliver looks taken aback. It’s nice to surprise him for once. “I didn’t realize you were religious.”
“I’m…lapsed. Ish. Sometimes. I—”
But she doesn’t actually want to talk about Mom right now, and it's impossible to explain her long, weird relationship to her religion without talking about Mom. Oliver’s got one hand wrapped around the strap of his quiver, obviously waiting to strip out of his leathers but too polite to do it while she’s talking to him.
“Go change,” she says and makes a shooing gesture. “You’re tired.”
But he doesn’t go. He looks at her curiously. “What do you pray for?”
Felicity snorts. “You. Obviously.”
Oliver does the thing where he frowns with his mouth and smiles with his eyes.
“Well. Thank you,” he says formally.
Felicity feels kind of strange and embarrassed to be thanked for something she rarely does and probably does poorly, at that.
“Yeah,” she says, because she can't think of anything else.
“I’ll let you get back to it.” And he turns to go, the quiver lifted up and over his head as he turns.
“Yeah."
She turns back to the flame and watches it flicker, listens to the rustle of his leathers coming off, tries not to fixate on the soft grunt of pain he makes.
Protect Oliver. Protect John. Protect Roy. Protect Sara.
She makes it into a mantra of sorts, and feels her embarrassment fade away the longer she repeats it.