Chapter Text
Felicity shifted from foot to foot in front of the receptionist’s window. The woman was behind a wall of glass; she had the feeling it was bullet-proof. This was certainly the right neighborhood to test that theory.
She was here because, well, because she didn’t know what she was looking for. The girl who could find a person on the other side of the earth with a keyhole satellite and tell you what color their eyes were needed help finding the right support group. The irony would’ve made her smile, if she wasn’t biting her lip hard enough to draw blood.
There didn’t seem to be any therapy groups for People Who Inadvertently Did A Bad Thing. She’d Googled it. So here she was, standing in front of the world-weary employee of a community counseling center, hoping to get answers. A direction. Anything.
“What kind of therapy are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m here. Something...bad happened.” Felicity couldn’t elaborate further, so she just stood there, twisting her fingers together. “To my friend,” she added suddenly, almost cringing at the obvious lie. The woman sighed.
“Unless your friend”—the word was barely emphasized—“wants help, there’s not much we can do, you know.”
A single tear escaped out from under Felicity’s lashes, and she blinked furiously. The woman’s face softened in pity as she looked away.
“Private sessions or group therapy?” she asked. It wasn’t meant to sound brusque, Felicity was pretty sure, but she couldn’t help feeling like she was taking up this lady’s valuable time or something. It was adding another layer to her anxiety; she felt her chest tighten.
“Group,” she said softly but clearly. One-on-one sessions, with her suitcase full of secrets and her penchant for babbling, was a terrible idea.
“There’s a PTSD group that meets three evenings a week in the Glades,” the woman offered, her eyes flicking up from her computer to gauge Felicity’s receptiveness.
“Not nights...my, ah, my friend works nights.”
“There’s also one on Tuesday mornings and another on Friday afternoons. They’re in the Glades too. The group was started for victims of the Undertaking, but there always seems to be a need to keep it open.”
Felicity swallowed hard; she had a flash of Oliver, his hands covered in Tommy’s blood, stumbling into the Foundry like a dead man. Oliver, composed entirely of exhaustion and despair as he watched his city burn under Slade Wilson’s control. The look on his face when she’d guessed that he had planned to go down in the plane crash with Ra's. Lying back on the sparring mat with her in his arms, just last night, and then surging up again to attack her mouth like a man dying of thirst.
“Is there one in, um, Bludhaven?”
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The church that housed the therapy group had seen better centuries. The basement was musty and dark, the paint blistering over ancient plaster, full of cluttered, forgotten corners; it suited her just fine. Felicity didn’t think she could’ve faced the brutal honesty of fluorescent lighting and modern furniture. The linoleum under her feet was stained and cracked in a thousand places; it felt like her soul.
The first week she had sat in a cold metal folding chair, rusty at the joints and tippy. The next week she got there early enough to have her pick of seats but she’d chosen the tippy one again. It was penance for her and a gesture of kindness to the chair that nobody else wanted.
She never spoke, rarely smiled. She hoped she might heal just by listening to the stories of others; how the hell, exactly, was she supposed to say her name and then tell everyone that she was there because she was an accidental mass murderer?
Some of the stories broke her heart. Some made her admire the storyteller. And a couple reminded her so much of Oliver it made her stomach hurt. But she came back every week, a silent ghost in a wonky chair, her efforts to keep it level and quiet a metaphor for her life.
The fifth week Felicity almost didn’t go. It was the third straight day of cold, relentless rain, she was grumpy from PMS—though this was good news, further confirmation that the salmon ladder indiscretion didn’t leave her pregnant—and she could feel a cold coming on. But she did it anyway, slipping into a chair in the badly-lit circle just as they were starting.
She didn’t like to make eye contact, but after shrugging out of her raincoat and stowing her purse her eyes raised as she sat up, and she caught a new face looking at her. He was unconventionally handsome—she acknowledged that her metric was a little skewed, thanks to Oliver Queen—with beautiful, piercing eyes, and something else; a swagger, even motionless. He didn’t smile, but his expression was soft, and he didn’t look away from her gaze.
He also never spoke, and as the minutes ticked by Felicity caught herself glancing at him more often, waiting to see if he would share. He was always focused completely on whoever was talking, intent and interested. As far as she could tell, he never looked at her again.
There was always coffee after, surprisingly good stuff, considering the surroundings. She hovered on the edges of the crowd, waiting her turn to grab a cup to go, hyper aware of anyone who might be approaching to try to start up a conversation. So it was a complete surprise when he appeared off her left shoulder, close but not crowding, as she worked the coffee urn.
“Hi,” he said gently, his hands coming up in defense when she jumped and nearly spilled her cup. He chuckled softly and—despite her usual instincts—so did she. “Sorry,” he continued. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Felicity turned halfway toward him, shaking her head enough to make her ponytail fly.
“It’s fine. I’m just...I’m fine.”
He stuck out a hand and she took it automatically.
“Adrian Chase. Nice to meet you.”
“Felicity. Smoak.” A part of her brain was screaming at her to stop with the introductions already, Miss I’m-at-an-anonymous-meeting, but it was out before she could stop it. Never meet a stranger, her mother always said.
The corner of his mouth lifted in the smallest of smirks, and he squeezed her hand just a little.
“See you around, Felicity Smoak.”