Chapter Text
She didn’t know how long it would take or what it would entail. All she knew was that she was one step closer to seeing him again. Oliver. For twenty long years he’d never left her mind for a single moment.
There had been times when she thought it she would have to break one promise to keep another. Fight for their children's safety like she had promised Oliver but sacrifice herself in the process which meant breaking the promise she'd made to find him again.
Felicity wasn’t sure what was worse. Never seeing her husband again or the knowledge that he was out there waiting for her to emerge. Waiting for a day that would never come. Fortunately the universe that had always been so unkind to them was merciful this time.
Felicity takes a deep breath as she smiles into the abyss. She was going to miss her babies terribly but she would also be able to tell Oliver everything about them that had transpired over the last twenty years. Besides they were no longer babies. William was a successful businessman and Mia... well Mia was Felicity's fierce little rebel with skills to rival her father.
There was a sense of freedom that Felicity hadn’t felt since the night Oliver left. She had done everything Oliver asked of her. She’d shielded Will and Mia and guided them to a place where they could now protect themselves and others. They were ready to lead independent lives and flourish, even without her there with them. More importantly they had each other.
“He should be waiting for you over there,” the Monitor tells her in his deep, serious tone. This meeting was so much less ominous than their last. Felicity had briefly wondered how long their trip would take and if she was required to make small talk along the way. Luckily it seems like she had stepped into a portal that was leading her straight to Oliver.
“Well that was a lot faster than I expected,” Felicity smiles pleasantly at the Monitor before scanning her eyes in search of Oliver.
“Not that I’m complaining but would it have been so hard for you to whip me here and back to see him during the last twenty years? Surely you gave him some down time in between whatever quest it was you sent him on?”
“Your husband was righting the wrongs of the universe Ms Smoak,” Monitor gives her a solemn, unimpressed look.
“Hey I’m not complaining. Not really. As long as he’s really here and this is not some wild goose chase I will forgive you for separating us for the last twenty years,” Felicity says raising her hands in mock surrender.
Monitor gives her a neutral look that is laced with what she detects to be a tiny hint of amused exasperation.
“Felicity.”
His voice is soft and yet somehow exactly like she remembers it. Felicity swings her body around in an instant, yet the enormity of the moment freezes her and prevents her from flinging herself at him like she so desperately wants to.
He was completely different and yet in some ways exactly like she remembered him. His hair was grey, his face showing signs of the passage of time. His eyes however…well she’d recognize those eyes, that look on his face anywhere. In his eyes Felicity could see his love, all the passion and pain of the last twenty years.
She smiles through her tears as she recognizes the spark of adoration in them. Heart eyes. Twenty years and he still has the same heart eyes he so often wore when he was mooning at her during their first seven years together.
“Oliver,” she cries and suddenly her feet are moving, propelling her towards him. He must have been running too, she doesn’t really know how but suddenly she’s pressed against him, burying her face into his chest. His arms are wound tightly around her and she can feel his tears in her hair.
“I understand this is what you both have waited for. I hope it is everything you wish. I will return as necessary.”
Oliver and Felicity are both vaguely aware of the Monitor’s words before he vanishes into yet another portal, however they are too fixated on each other to give those words any real weight. Instead their lips find each other.
The kisses are soft, gentle at first. Joyful kisses of two lost souls who were now finally reunited. Felicity hadn’t dared let herself dream what it would be like to kiss him, to taste him once again. Instead she’d shelved those feelings away like a beautiful memory, a dream in a box that was to be opened again one day.
Now the dream was a reality and reality was glorious. Oliver must have thought so too as his kisses became more urgent and needy.
“Twenty years I’ve waited to feel this way again,” he whispers in between kisses. “I didn’t know if I would survive, if you would survive, if it would be twenty, thirty or one hundred years. All I knew was that for as long as I lived I would have waited for this day.”
“I love you,” Felicity tells him, echoing one of the last things they'd said to each other.
“I love you.”
***
Everything that happened after their initial kisses was a blur. Oliver and Felicity who had spent the better part of two decades focused on details simply allowed themselves to feel, to be lost in the moment without any care or thought.
Felicity casts her mind back to the last few hours (she briefly wondered if there was a concept of time where ever they were) as she lay there, wrapped in Oliver’s arms.
Somewhere along the way their kisses weren’t enough as they lost control and surrendered themselves to twenty years of longing. Suffice to say it was a miracle they both survive their physical reunion.
Felicity lets out a small giggle as she ponders the idea of the two of them surviving Star City and the Crisis only to finally perish due to their reunion sex.
“I never thought I would hear or see you laugh like that again,” Oliver says softly as he sits up. His arms are still grasping onto her waist firmly, something he needed in order to feel secure and grounded. It was a reminder of what the last twenty years without her had done to him.
“I haven’t laughed like that in a long time. But I knew I would some day. And that some day is today,” Felicity smiles at her husband, her eyes welling up again.
Not wanting to waste time on another sob fest after losing him for so long, Felicity quickly blinks her tears away and changes the subject.
“Now that I temporarily have my wits about me back, where are we exactly? This looks like a luxury cabin of some kind. Did your old friend Mr Monitor set us up in a fancy cabin in the woods?”
Felicity casts her around her surroundings, which she had only noticed for the first time. They were on an opulent four-poster bed, complete with an intricately carved wooden bed head. Lacy white curtains surrounding the bed added to the romantic feel. The sheets she noticed were bright pink with pictures of smiling baby elephants on them that were in complete contrast with the tastefully furnished room.
“I…when the Monitor dropped me off here, he calls it the Paradise Realm, he recreated the cabin in Bloomfield. I stayed there. It made me feel closer to you. Somehow I felt being there, in those surroundings I could share a part of the pain I’d left with you.”
Oliver's voice chokes up as he strokes her face. She was so beautiful. Even more beautiful than he remembered. How was it that he was old and grey and Felicity looked like she hadn’t aged a day. She’d been tasked with the arduous task of protecting their children alone and yet it seems like the ravages of time had spared her. The only discernable difference was the stylish bob she wore as her new hairstyle and the fact that her eyes crinkled more when she smiled.
“Oh Oliver it wasn’t your fault. It was the universes’ fault. You always end up as the chosen one but it wasn’t your fault that you had to leave. I know that, I’ve always known that.”
Felicity flings herself at him and peppers his face with lots of little kisses in the hopes of kissing all his guilt and sorrow away. He hadn’t let go of the guilt in 20 years but then he’d been away from her. She was going to have to work on alleviating all that pain now that they were together again. This was her Oliver just as she remembers him. With a big heart that was just a few sizes too big sometimes.
“Was it hard?” he asks, gripping onto her hand, his eyes searching hers desperately for answers. He didn’t know what he was hoping to hear. He knew it must have been crippling for her and yet somehow a part of him desperately wished she hadn’t suffered in that cabin alone with their tiny infant.
“No harder than it was for you saving the universe,” she tells him, rubbing his back in that soothing way he hadn’t felt for almost a lifetime. “I can’t lie to you in the Paradise realm. It was terribly hard. The loneliness, the thought of neverending years without you.”
Felicity crawls on top of Oliver and cups his face in her hands.
“But I had Mia, our amazing daughter and I had William who I had to keep an eye on from afar. I recruited Nyssa to train Mia and half the time I was too busy being aggravated with her. There was also Smoak Tech. All those things became my new normal.”
“You living for long periods under the same roof with Nyssa would have been quite a sight to see,” Oliver chuckles as he casts his mind to how the normally solemn assassin often liked to press Felicity’s buttons or merely bait Felicity because she enjoyed attention from his wife. Nyssa was a unique woman who had proven to be a worthy friend in the end.
“Believe it or not besides our children she’s one of the people I will miss,” Felicity laughs. “She really grew on me and she’s Mia’s godmother and mentor so I feel like I can’t hold anything against her anymore no matter what she says to me.”
Felicity’s smile fades as she looks at her husband’s worn face. It was as handsome as ever yes but even more burdened than she had remembered it.
“I had him create this new cabin when he told me you were ready to find me again. I didn’t have much time to think, to process it. I just got him to change the Bloomfield cabin to this because I wasn’t sure if you had any bad memories you needed to leave behind.”
He’s gazing at her with those sincere puppy dog eyes that leaves Felicity with no doubt she would have waited for this man for centuries, not just decades.
“I want to know about you,” she whispers. “I have been so worried about you. I still had some semblance of a life but you were all alone.”
“I had hope,” Oliver smiles at her. A beautiful, radiant smile that lets her know he’d survived the last 20 years just like he’d survived the island. Because that was who her husband was. A survivor who fought for the greater good and the people he loved.
“So did I,” Felicity cards her fingers through his salt and pepper hair. “I had an abundance of hope. It fuelled me, kept me going.”
“All that hope wasn’t in vain. We’re here in paradise now. Together.” Oliver is gazing at her again. Felicity blushes profusely because the look on his face is so reminisce of them in their twenties even though here they are, two wrinklies with fully grown children.
“We’re too old for you to look at me like that,” Felicity tries to cover up her face, her cheeks flushing red.
It really was ridiculous. After everything they’d been through she was now in a cabin, naked, feeling giddy and stupid over her husband.
“I will always look at you like that Felicity,” Oliver tells her earnestly as he gently pries her hands away from her face and gazes at her in wonderment before pulling her in for another kiss. There will be an eternity of kisses waiting for them but Oliver still treasures each and every one.