Chapter Text
“Your grief path is yours alone, and no one else can walk it, and no one else can understand it.”
-Terri Irwin
Oliver walked into Carter Bowens house to hear the music blaring and a throng of bodies on the dance floor moving to the beat of the song. He took a deep breath and scrunched his nose at the smell, sweat and alcohol. He sighed as he looked around trying to find her, all he wanted was to spend the night with his girlfriend. Take her out on a date like they used to, spend some quality time with her like before...before everything happened. He wanted them to have one last night before he left tomorrow for University and things changed forever.
He didn't see her when he first walked in so he made his way towards the kitchen knowing that she was probably there with Tommy and Sara getting drunk or high. He didn't know who she is anymore, all she ever wanted to do was party and she didn't seem like she was going to slow down anytime soon.
He saw her the moment that he walked into the kitchen, looking absolutely gorgeous and radiant, but he knew better. He knew that she looked like this because she was more than likely high and that was why she was all smiles and nothing more.
“Baby! You're here!!” When Felicity saw him her eyes lit up and she pushed through the crowd of people to get to him as if she knew that he was coming. She threw herself at him, draping herself over him, he caught her not wanting her to fall. She reeked of tequila and sweat, the smell nearly made him throw up from the intensity of it. He pushed her off of him enough so that he could get a good look at her, her pupils were completely dilated and he could see the residue under her nose from the cocaine that she had most likely been snorting with the rest of them.
“Did you forget about our date? I went to your aunts and you weren't there, she said that you went out with Sara and Tommy. Felicity this needs to stop, I get that you have been hurting but this is not the way to fix it. Drinking and drugs are just going to numb the pain but they won't help you heal.” Oliver was trying his best not to get angry with her because he knew that she was in an immense amount of pain after the accident, but this was becoming too much for even him to handle. He didn’t think he had much patience left for her.
Felicity took a step back and the smile on her face fell slightly trying to understand what he was saying, she seemed to sober up almost instantly at the implications of the double meaning behind everything.
“What are you saying? I’m sorry that I missed our date it slipped my mind, Sara said that Carter was having a party and I wanted to go out one last time with the gang before we leave next week for LA.” She tried to reason with him and make him see that it was an accident and that she would do better next time.
“What about me? Don’t I deserve to spend some time with you before I leave tomorrow? Felicity I have barely seen you this summer, between you working and me shadowing my dad before I leave for college and recently with you partying every chance you get...I don’t know how much longer I can deal with this. I have tried to understand and reason with you but I’m done. You are being reckless with your life and you don’t even seem to care, instead of spending time together I am worrying about whether or not I am going to lose you because you are going to get behind the wheel and crash your car.” Oliver took a deep breath not realizing that the entire kitchen hand got eerily quiet as they all listened in on the fight that was about to start.
Felicity’s eyes began to water from anger, how dare he come here and embarrass her like this and in front of all of their friends. She was really trying hard not to break down in front of everyone because if Oliver left too then she really wouldn’t have anyone. Felicity swiped at her cheeks to wipe away the evidence of her tears, she looked around and took a deep steadying breath trying to be rational about this but the high and the alcohol were making it hard for her to focus.
“Can we go somewhere and talk? Please let’s not do this here.” She was practically begging at this point, she couldn’t lose Oliver, he was the only one who believed in her, but maybe that was part of the problem. She didn’t believe in herself anymore and was relying on him to do all the work for her.
“There’s nothing to talk about Felicity, I love you and I always will but I can’t do this anymore. You won’t let me in anymore and I have been standing around all summer waiting for this wild child phase to be over with but it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen. I understand that losing your parents broke you, I saw it happen and I tried to be there for you but instead of grieving them you decided that drinking and drugs were how you were going to cope with it. I am partially at fault as well because I wasn’t completely there for you but I tried to be once I saw how bad this was getting and you just pushed me further away. I don’t want to be in your life if this is what it’s going to look like, I’m sorry Lis I am; but I can’t continue to stand by and watch as you nearly kill yourself every night.” Oliver looked down into her eyes and knew that he was breaking her heart and it broke him to know the pain that he was causing her, but he needed to be selfish. He needed to think about what was good for him and watching the love of his life drink herself into oblivion while getting high wasn’t good for him, it was killing him inside.
He took a deep breath and gave her a quick kiss to her temple needing that last bit of contact before saying goodbye to her forever. He walked out of the kitchen and out the door needing to get out of that place and to the comfort of his car so that he could cry.
Felicity felt like her whole world was falling apart for the second time that summer, she couldn’t breathe and it sounded like she was completely underwater. She couldn’t hear anything except for Oliver’s words telling her that he was done. That he was leaving her because he couldn’t handle watching her live the life that she was living. She took a deep breath and quickly followed him out of the house infuriated about the events of the night and how everything had turned out.
“Oliver! You don’t get to just come here and break things off that’s not how this works! You promised! After the funeral you promised that you would always be here and that you wouldn’t ever leave, what happened to the man that I fell in love with? The man who told me that he would never break his promises? Where’s that guy?!” She followed him down the long driveway having to run in order to catch up with him. Oliver whirled around to look her in the face not holding anything back.
“That guy disappeared when I had to drive you to the emergency room July 4th because you mixed too much alcohol with Vertigo and died Felicity! Your heart stopped and they had to bring you back, I was there when they told your aunt that you flatlined three times! You don’t get to stand here and expect me to watch you try and kill yourself, that’s not fair to either of us! You either change this path your on or I’m gone, I can promise you that. I made that other promise to you before you decided to go on this spiral, I made that promise to help you grieve after the accident and help you through it, but you never let me in! I can’t help you if you won’t let me!” Oliver was practically screaming at this point not being able to hold in his anger, he was angry about everything, but he was mostly angry because he had to let her go, he knew that she wasn’t going to change.
“Oh so that’s how this is going to go now!? You are going to give me an ultimatum to change or you are gone? I shouldn’t have to change who I am for you Oliver! If you loved me then you would accept me for who I am, this is the new me Ollie.” She practically spit out his nickname, she knew that she was in the wrong but she was just so angry that she wanted to get a rise out of him and hurt him just as much as he was hurting her at the moment.
“No. We both know that this isn’t you Felicity, the real you wouldn’t avoid any talk about the accident. The real you would actually take the time and put in the work to get better, the real you would actually talk about your parents. The real you would have remembered our date tonight because I leave tomorrow for Harvard and we won’t be seeing much of each other. The real you would take one look at you right now and be disgusted with the way that you are acting.”
Without even thinking Felicity slapped Oliver as hard as she could across his face shocking both of them. The second after she had done it she wished that she could take it back, she gasped and covered her mouth with both her hands the one that had hit Oliver throbbing from the pain. Oliver looked over at her not even being able to comprehend what had just happened, he didn’t know who this girl was anymore. He didn’t recognize one thing about her anymore, she was a completely different person.
He rubbed his cheek knowing that there was going to at least be a bruise there. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend the changes that he was witnessing her go through before his eyes.
“Oliver...I’m-” She began to apologize but he cut her off.
“Don’t. I don’t know who you are anymore...If you decide that you actually want to change, then you know where I’ll be tomorrow, but I’m done. I need to think about my future and if this is the new you then I don’t think that you can be apart of that future.” Oliver took one last look at her before turning his back on her and walking away and finally letting his tears run down his face. He couldn’t believe that this was happening, he always thought that they could make it through anything, but maybe that was teenage dreams and being naive.
Felicity stood there and watched him walk away from her, but she couldn’t see him for long between the tears and the darkness of the night. She collapsed to the ground barely feeling the gravel biting into her knees and she sat there and sobbed barely being able to catch her breath. At that moment the only person that she needed to help her through this was Oliver, ironically, he was the only person that would have been able to help her get over him.
He was her best friend, he had been since the fourth grade, they were inseparable ever since that one day on the playground that he defended her against the older kids because she was smaller and smarter than all of them. She had loved him nearly her entire life, they had been together since eighth grade and now here they were five years later...this is not how she pictured their future turning out. They had been talking about getting engaged and wondering how they were going to make it work long distance, but they had been through so much worse that they thought they would be able to make it work, until the accident happened.
Her parents and her were coming home from dinner celebrating her graduation, she was walking across that stage to receive her high school diploma in a week and she couldn’t wait to move to LA and start her music career. They were driving through what seemed to be an empty intersection on a green light when they were suddenly t-boned by a drunk driver running a red light. He hit them on the drivers side killing her dad instantly, it caused the car to start flipping over and over making Felicity’s stomach dropped like she was on a roller coaster before she even realized what was happening. The car was stopped when it hit a telephone pole on the passenger’s side. Everything happened so quickly that Felicity wasn’t able to process what was happening until it was all over with.
Felicity and her mom were rushed to the hospital where they underwent multiple surgery’s, however Felicity was the only one who made it out with her life that night. She woke up in a hospital room with her aunt and Oliver at her side, not even knowing that either of her parents were dead. Oliver was the one who broke the news to her, that was the moment that her life was turned on its axis.
She had to miss graduation in exchange for getting open heart surgery to insure that she would make it through the night. She spent the first week or so in the hospital in a drug induced haze because her body couldn’t handle the constant stress that the grief was causing her. Whenever she would wake up she was hit with a tidal wave of grief and her heart rate would skyrocket. On the morning of her graduation her grief was so unbearable that it caused her to have a heart attack. She was in the hospital for another week before her doctors finally felt comfortable discharging her into her aunt’s care.
The grief of losing her parents and being the only one to walk away from that crash had sent her into a spiral that she didn’t even realize she was on until now when it was too late. She never thought something could hurt as much as losing her parents but this nearly equalled that pain, she felt like her chest was being ripped in two.
She didn’t know how long she hand been sitting there sobbing until suddenly she felt hands on her shoulders and turned around to see Tommy and Sara not too far behind him. Felicity sank into his arms and just sobbed wishing that she could take everything back, she wanted to turn back time and not push Oliver away. She wished that she hadn’t taken advantage of the time that she had with him.
“I can’t lose him too, I can’t survive losing him too, I won’t make it.” She sobbed into Tommy’s chest as he held her and gently rocked her back and forth hoping to help her calm down, Tommy hadn’t seen her like this since her parent’s funeral, the only difference was the last time she was collapsed in Oliver’s arms instead of his.
“Come on, let’s get you home to sleep this off.” Tommy stood with her still clutching at his shirt as she sobbed as Sara, the only sober one, followed behind them to her car to drive them back Sara’s place to spend the night and sleep this off.
Felicity woke up the next morning with a killer hangover, half from the drinking and the other half from all of the crying that she did well into the morning. She groaned at the sun shining on her face from Sara’s bed and slowly sat up and looked around, the first thing that she saw was what time it was and immediately flew out of bed and climbed over Sara to get her phone.
It was 9:30AM, Oliver’s train left at 10:30AM, she couldn’t miss him. She had to make it there and tell him that she was going to change, she needed to tell him that she loved him and couldn’t imagine going through life without him by her side. She needed him to know that she was sorry and that she was going to put in the work and get better.
“Dude! What’s with all of the rushing around? It’s 9:30AM!” Sara groaned and covered her head with her pillow trying to ignore all of the noise that Felicity was making.
“Oliver’s train leaves in an hour and I need to make it there before he leaves to tell him I love him. I can’t lose him Sara, I don’t think that I will make it through losing him too.” Felicity threw on a pair of Sara’s jeans and one of her tops that she hoped was clean.
Sara watched her friend desperately running around her room trying to get ready to leave the house to make things right with Oliver and knew that she couldn’t let her go and do this alone. Felicity was manic at the moment and Sara wasn’t about to let her friend go alone.
“Alright let’s go. I’ll drive because I don’t trust you to drive my car right now.” Sara sighed and got up and threw on some random clothes and grabbed her keys and followed Felicity as she ran out of the house.
If it weren’t for all of this Sara would have believed that last night was all a really bad dream, trying to picture Oliver and Felicity not together just felt wrong to her. They had always been together, all through high school they had stuck by each other through everything. Everyone thought that they would be together forever, hell they were voted in the yearbook with that same fate. They were the couple that everyone seemed to look up to, they were like a damn fairy tale and now watching Felicity frantically jumping into her car in order to make it to Oliver in time to fix things between them just seemed weird to her and broke her heart.
Sara and Felicity spent the entire ride to the train station in complete silence as Sara navigated her way to the station. Felicity sat in the passenger seat chewing on her nails needing to make it there in time so she could apologize for everything that had happened this past summer. They got to the station by 10:25AM and Felicity jumped out of the car before Sara even made it to a complete stop. She knew what track to go to because her and Oliver had discussed it a week or so beforehand, she sprinted not even caring who she was knocking over in the process. Sara haphazardly followed behind her trying not to lose her in the crowd.
Felicity made it to the track right at 10:30 just to see the train start moving and her heart instantly sank, she didn’t make it in time. Oliver got on that train thinking that she didn’t love him, he got on that train to leave for Harvard thinking that she didn’t want to fix things. Sara was at her side seconds later to see the train leaving the station and to see her best friend break down for the second time in 12 hours.
“Felicity?”
Felicity turned to see Moira standing next to her looking slightly confused, probably wondering why she had just gotten there and why she looked like death warmed over. Moira took a step towards Felicity not having seen the girl since her parents funeral, that whole summer Felicity had hardly ever spent any time at the Queen residence too busy nursing a hangover and getting ready to go out that night again to party her worries away.
“Moira, hi.” She didn’t have much more to say as she also saw Thea and Robert standing not too far behind her, Felicity wanted to cower inside of herself at how embarrassed she was by how she must have looked.
“Are you alright dear? Oliver wouldn’t tell us why you weren’t here today, are you feeling alright? We haven’t seen much of you this summer we have missed you around the house.” Moira said and it took every ounce of control in Felicity not to break down in her arms, she had been like a second mom to Felicity growing up. She didn’t think she would be able to break it to them that Oliver had broken up with her the night before, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to see the look on their faces when she told them that she screwed everything up.
“I’ve been better not gonna lie, I just…I wanted to tell Oliver something before he left but it looks like I lost my chance.” Felicity knew that there was sorrow and pain written all over her face, there was no way that she could hide this kind of pain behind a smile.
“I’m sure that he knows, you two are so in love, anyone can see that as fact.” Moira said trying to comfort Felicity not knowing that she was instead just making the pain worse.
“I’m not so sure that he knows...will you tell him something for me?” Felicity finally looked away from the train that was long gone, instead looking Moira in the eyes needing her to hear what she was saying.
“Of course.” Moira didn’t even need to think twice about it, she always saw Felicity as a second daughter to her especially when her and Oliver had begun dating.
“Will you just tell him that I am sorry for all the pain I caused him, tell him that I love him and that I hope that he finds someone that can make him as happy as he made me?” Felicity couldn’t stop the few tears that fell down her cheeks as she said this, she knew that she was taking the cowards way out by not telling him herself but she just needed him to know.
“Of course. You know whatever happened between you and Oliver that you are always apart of this family, you always will be.” It was obvious at that point that the two of them were no longer together and it broke Moira’s heart a little bit to know this. She always thought that the two of them would end up getting married one day, but she would support the two of them even if that meant separately.
“Thank you, I appreciate that I really do, you don’t know what that means to me.” Felicity smiled sadly and looked between the three of them and she felt her heart break again as she was saying goodbye to them. She knew that this might very well be the last time that she sees them all and it felt like she was losing her family all over again.
Thea ran over to Felicity and wrapped her arms around her neck in a bone crushing hug that almost put all of Felicity’s broken pieces back together. She hugged her back and took a deep breath and knew that this was the turning point for her, it didn’t take much time but she had hit her rock bottom and she knew that she needed to get help. All she wanted at that moment was a hit, she wanted to get high and forget all about this pain that she was feeling. She was going to get better, because if she didn’t all of this was for nothing, surviving that crash and getting a second chance at life was all wasted and for nothing. Oliver was right, she was throwing her life away if she didn’t get better.
“Don’t be a stranger Lis.” Thea squeezed her extra tight and Felicity laughed as a few more tears ran down her face and she nodded, she would keep this promise unlike every promise she made to Oliver that she had broken this past summer.
“I promise Speedy, I’ll keep you updated on all of my adventures in LA.” Felicity pulled back from the hug and smiled at her before giving her a kiss on the forehead.
Felicity looked over at Moira and Robert and gave both of them a hug promising the same thing, to keep them updated on what was going on in her life.
“You’re gonna blow the whole world away Felicity Smoak I just know it.” Robert whispered in her ear as he kissed her temple and stepped out of the hug, she smiled at him as he sent her a wink as the three of them made their way out of the station.
Felicity turned around to see Sara still standing there smiling sadly at her best friend, she knew how much this was probably killing her, but Sara knew Felicity almost better than anyone and she knew that she was going to make it through this and out the other side.
“Come on girly, let’s get home and finish packing so we can just sit on the couch and eat junk food for the next couple of days before we leave for LA.” Sara threw her arm around Felicity’s shoulder and Felicity leaned on her as they slowly made their way out of the station.
Felicity knew that it wasn’t going to be easy but she knew that she could make it through this, she had to, if not for her then at least for her parents. She was going to LA and focus on her music career, all she ever wanted in life was to be a pop-star and now she had nothing holding her back, she would turn all of this pain and sorrow into something. She would write about it and use her music to help her grieve, she wasn’t going to waste her life away.
Five years later
Felicity collapsed back onto her couch after getting home from yet another photoshoot that her publicist insisted that she do because apparently her career depended on it, Felicity thought that she was being dramatic but she wouldn’t fight her on it. She paid her to promote her music career and she was doing a damn good job at it no matter how many annoying reporters Felicity had to talk to.
“The photoshoot couldn’t have been that bad, you get paid to promote your new single, that’s easy money.” Sara commented as she made her way into their living room, Sara fell onto the couch next to her with a bowl of ice cream in her lap.
The two of them made their way out of Starling and right to LA nearly five years ago and they used Felicity’s money from her parents to get them a decent house on the outskirts of the city. The money had let the both of them focus on things without having to worry about rent or anything and Felicity would be forever grateful for the opportunity to be able to pursue her dreams.
She had broken into the music industry relatively quickly, they had been out there for two years and suddenly someone heard her demo and instantly loved it wanting to sign her, her career skyrocketed pretty quickly after that. It had taken Felicity the past two years to finally get up the capitol for her record company to want to release an album, now that it was here she seemed to be regretting every decision.
Don’t get her wrong she is really happy with how things are going, she’s insanely happy, but she is baring her soul in this album. Almost every one of the songs so far were from that first year after Oliver had left her and let her hit rock bottom on her own. They were about missing him and wishing that she still had him in her life, she was still in the process of writing but she had come up on an impasse and was stuck.
“Oh, it definitely is easy money but it's still tiring, I love a makeover just as much as the next girl but it’s not as fun as when we would do it in high school.” Felicity frowned and stole Sara’s spoon taking a bite of her ice cream.
“Hey!! If you want some then get your own bowl. What song are you promoting? You left so quickly this morning that I never got the chance to ask you.” Sara asked trying to steal back her spoon from Felicity.
“Head Above Water. It’s an easy one to talk about considering it’s about my addiction. I mean yeah it’s difficult to talk about but I want my fans to know that they aren’t alone, I want to make a difference somehow.” Felicity sighed and relented giving sara back her spoon.
“I give you credit Lis, I don’t think I would be able to bear myself the way that you do for everyone to see. But I would also like to point out that I heard your conversation with your publicist the other day. She originally wanted you to promote I Can’t Fall In Love Without You, but you wouldn’t. Would it happen to be because it about a certain handsome billionaire that we know and you don’t want people asking questions?” Sara offered up being completely right but that didn’t mean that Felicity was going to give her the satisfaction and admit to it.
“Shut it. You know how hard it was for me after everything, going through rehab was easier than that break up. I still am not over him.” Felicity sighed and stared at the TV and absentmindedly watching whatever reality TV garbage that Sara had on.
“Oh trust me I know, I saw your face last week when Thea told you that Oliver and that girl he’s dating were getting really serious. Your face looked like your heart broke all over again, you need to go on more dates and get over him, get out there. I get that you still love him but you need to at least try to move on, it’s not healthy you just waiting around to be able to get back together with him. He is happy and you need to be happy too, after everything that you have been through you deserve to be happy like that again.” Sara looked at Felicity ignoring everything else besides their conversation, she wanted nothing but the best for her best friend, after the past five years she wanted Felicity to be happy like that again.
“I know that I need to move on and I have been on dates thank you very much, but there hasn’t been anyone worth my time. No one really understands what it’s like to be in the music industry and I am not about to date someone in the industry, that’s a disaster waiting to happen. I am also not waiting around to get back together with Oliver, that was five years ago and he is happy. That’s all that I really wanted for him after everything that I put him through.” Felicity turned her body towards Sara and sighed as she took the forgotten bowl of ice cream from her hands and eating it before it completely melted.
“Oh really? Is that why you relapsed when you heard that he had moved on when he brought that girl back from Harvard? What was her name again?” Sara asked knowing that Felicity knew exactly what her name was.
“McKenna.” Felicity said almost instantly and knew that she had fallen into her trap.
“That’s not fair, you can’t bring up my relapse, there were other factors behind that.” Felicity said angry that Sara even had the nerve to bring it up, even though she knew that she was right. Hearing that Oliver had brought someone home for Christmas ad broke her and sent her down the rabbit hole once again. Thinking about him being with anyone else seemed to make her heart hurt just as much as the break up did.
“Okay maybe that wasn’t fair but am I wrong? You have been heart broken for the past five years ever since you missed that train to tell him how you felt. I have had to stand by and keep my mouth shut because I thought I was helping but I can tell that it wasn’t good for you, this isn’t healthy.”
“Fine! Okay maybe I’m not over him but what does it matter? He has moved on and I have accepted that, I lost my chance and I have to live the rest of my life knowing that.” Felicity sighed and took a giant bite of ice cream trying to drown her sorrows in it rather than giving into her true craving.
Sara was about to respond with a witty remark when Felicity’s phone started ringing with a request for a FaceTime with Thea. She answered without thinking twice even though their FaceTime dates were normally at five instead of three but Felicity was welcoming the distraction from this brutal talk that her and Sara were currently having.
“Hey Speedy! I welcome the reprieve of talking to you instead of continuing to talk to Sara about my love life or the lack thereof.” Felicity said without even looking at the screen, but once she looked down she knew that something was wrong. Thea’s eyes were red rimmed like she had been crying and it looked like she was in the waiting room of a hospital, both of the girls had an extremely bad feeling in the pit of their stomachs that something was seriously wrong.
“Thea? What’s wrong?” Felicity asked scared of the words that the young girl was going to say next.
“It’s dad. We went out to lunch today like we have started doing ever since I moved out and then suddenly he started grabbing at his chest and then he collapsed. He had a heart attack.”