Chapter Text
Oliver stares out of the hospital window. He’d been here before. Lived this life before. Only this time the emotions involved were completely different. He hadn’t expected this from the reset. He’d expected to fade into nothingness. Or maybe end up in a mirage where Felicity would be waiting for him. Because he knew that if he somehow survived this, if he wasn’t reduced to ashes and oblivion, wherever he ended up, whenever he ended up, Felicity would find him.
So apparently he did survive this, not only survived it but also bought himself eight extra years of time. Time he thought he’d lost forever. Time to tell Felicity he loved her sooner. Because there was no way he was going to bother with Star City or Starling (whatever the hell it was called right now) again. He’d paid his dues to this god-forsaken place and the universe. He was going to go out and get him some Felicity. He did this reset for Mia and William, so they could have a better future. Which meant that Mia had to be made (he wasn’t being selfish, the very existence of his heroic daughter depended on his ability to woo her Mama). The William problem he had a plan to tackle all in good time. But right now he had to go and convince Felicity to fall in love with him. Everything hinged on him getting the girl anyway so it wasn’t like he was using this as an excuse to chase down his wife sooner than fate intended.
“Oliver,” his mother says tentatively, her voice laced with worry. Oliver turns around and smiles at her. It was going to be easier on all of them this time round.
“Mom I am fine. I’m so sorry I got on that boat. I have been given a second chance and now I need to go to QC right away. I want to learn the ropes and make amends. Be the master of the universe in…um…business.” Oliver realizes he still has no idea about business but he figures none of that matters. He would just marry Felicity and she could run the business. Then everyone would be happy.
“Oliver dear…are you…are you feeling alright?” his mom asks again, looking even more concerned than when he was staring out the window.
“Of course I am,” Oliver assures her brightly. Maybe too brightly because now Moira is looking startled.
“Mom I’ve lost five years so I don’t want to dwell on it. I just want to move on with my life.”
“If that’s what you want I will support you.” Moira still looks unsure but Oliver can see she’s going to go along with this for now.
***
Oliver glances quickly at his cooler and the thermo bag one last time to make sure the contents were in tiptop condition. He quickly checks his reflection in the glass and grimaces self consciously. Damn reset didn’t make him look eight years younger despite resetting everyone else in age. He was going to look an extra eight years older than Felicity bringing their age gap to thirteen years.
Truth be told he felt a little bit dirty chasing the young, Librarian Barbie version of his wife. It brought back quite a few fantasies he had back in the day, only now he could act them out.
Stop it. Oliver mentally smacks himself. Stop lusting after Felicity and get her to like you first.
***
“Felicity Smoak?”
“Hi I'm Oliver Queen.”
“You will always be the love of my life.”
“We were forced apart in another time line so I'm just going to get this ball rolling because I was really hoping for a few more kids when I did this reset.”
Oliver smiles at Felicity eagerly, his eyes lighting up as they meet hers. He’d thought long and hard about how he was going to do this and decided that honesty was the best policy. He’d made so many unilateral decisions for them in the past, this time he wanted to start with a clean slate even if that meant spilling the truth right away.
Felicity tilts her head and gives him a look of composed disbelief.
Dang it. Maybe he had come on too strong. Oh well there was no going back now. In for a penny in for a pound or whatever it was Constantine used to say.
He decides to give her another heart eyed gaze. She was as cute as a button. Last time he was here he had a bullet ridden laptop to contend with. Now he could just gloriously relish in how adorable Felicity was. And he was going to marry her. Oliver would have squeed if he was the squeeing type.
“Well this is new...Shouldn't have had that third coffee this morning,” Felicity mutters to herself.
She takes a deep breath and composes herself.
“Mr. Queen?”
“No, Oliver. Mr. Queen was my dad. But he’s dead. I mean he drowned. But I haven’t. I lived this whole other life with you where we were separated and I had to die three times, maybe four, I’ve lost count as I seem to come back to life whenever it is convenient.” He winces and shakes himself in order to focus.
“Point is, and I hate saying this but we are meant to be. Really we are. I know it sounds crazy but this is my chance to tell you I love you sooner and I will not let it get away. I will not let you get away.”
“That sounds like a bit of a threat,” Felicity responds with a hint of mirth in her voice. “And I am the one who usually speaks in sentence fragments.”
“Well there you go. Told you we were married. Some of your traits rubbed off me after eight years.”
“We were married for eight years?” she raises an eyebrow at him. Oliver knew he’d gotten his foot in the door at least. Felicity might think he was nuts but Felicity was intrigued and that boded well for him. His wife loved mysteries.
“No, only about a year. Most of which I spent in jail because I turned myself to the authorities behind your back.”
“That doesn’t sound too good. Was other lifetime me angry? Tell me why I would want to take another swim in your pool this time round?”
Felicity is just goading him now. He’s all too familiar with that look. She’s not exactly hating him. She’s skeptical and uneasy but also trying to work out what his brand of crazy was while being quippy about it to hide her uneasiness.
“None of that matters because it will never happen again. But if you agree to marry me I will tell you all about it if you want to know.”
“Mr. Queen are you proposing legal marriage to me?” Felicity says looking scandalized and he’s not sure if she’s exaggerating or horrified for real.
“Well that is the end goal,” he says slowly, deliberately leaving out all the information about Mia and William. He’d given her enough reasons to think he was as crazy as Slade on Mirakuru today. No need to add more fuel to the fire by mentioning the kids.
“Are you? Would you…”Oliver trails off.
“Would I say yes?” Felicity finishes for him to which he straightens his shoulders and nods enthusiastically.
“Mr. Queen you’ve come back from the dead, strutted into my office, told me some ridiculous story about us being married in another lifetime and now insist that you want to propose legal marriage to me.”
“Yes but every word of it is true,” Oliver implores at her. He’s sounding and feeling a little whiny, which is probably not helping his cause since he was cold and angry in the past which made Felicity bestow her sunshine on him. Now he probably just seemed creepy. Damn it why couldn’t the universe finished the reset with him being married to Felicity already.
“Why me?” Felicity sighs rubbing her temples. She hadn’t exactly expected to deal with something like this when she showed up at work today.
“That sounds so much like the time you said Why her so sadly after I slept with Isabel. Your face crushed me that day.” The words come tumbling out of his mouth and he immediately regrets them. He was taking this truth thing too far, too fast.
“You cheated on me?” Felicity looks indignant now, hands on hips as she glares at him.
“No! We weren’t together. We were just friends. I was in love with you but you were everything to me and I couldn’t bear to lose you so I tried to force my feelings away and told you that I couldn’t be with anyone I really cared about.”
“That sounds exhausting,” Felicity gives him a knowing look.
“I’ll admit life with me wasn’t easy. But I love you. I loved you back then and I love you now and I will love you in any other time or space.”
“Look…Mr. Queen…Oliver. You have to appreciate how I feel right now. I’m working away in my cubicle and some crazy guy comes along and tells me I’m his wife in another life.”
“You said something like that too,” Oliver points out gleefully finding that he got very excited and could not control himself whenever their classic quotes cropped up. It was different and yet the same.
Felicity shoots him a chastising look causing him to deflate immediately.
“Look I know it sounds crazy. But I love you and together we could have an adventure of a lifetime. I’m going to leave now but I would love to take you to dinner tomorrow once you’ve had time to process all this.”
“By process you mean believe you?” Felicity quips back although he detects a look of mildly fond amusement on her face. However his insecure demons kick in and he starts to wonder what if he was imagining things and she just thought he was plain old crazy.
“I brought these for you,” he says quickly shoving the bags at her.
To his delight Felicity looks intrigued and proceeds to open the bags.
“Two tubs of mint chip ice cream and a sandwich made with…waffles?” she says looking even more puzzled now.
“I love mint chip. That’s my favourite flavor of ice cream.”
“I know,” Oliver says triumphantly. “I also know I have stressed you out by dropping all this information on you so you will need to stress eat this afternoon.”
“I don’t know what this is?” Felicity waves the Monte Cristo at him.
“My specialty. Take a bite.”
Felicity looks hesitant, her eyes moving from him to the sandwich.
“Oh come on what motivation could I possibly have to spike or poison your food in the middle of the day in my own company?”
He leans down and takes a bite of the sandwich in her hand.
“See?” he says encouragingly.
Felicity gingerly takes a bit of the sandwich, chewing on it, her face looking thoughtful. She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds.
Oliver starts cussing the Monitor and Anti Monitor in his head. If they’ve left it so that Felicity doesn’t like Monte Cristos in this life there will be hell to pay. Well they were both dead but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to curse them for an eternity. Really he could afford to be remarkably petty in this life. He had all the time for it.
“It’s delicious. Quite a revelation.”
“Sooo…a date?” Oliver asks eagerly.
“When did I agree to a date in the last life?” Felicity asks with the air of one who had been worn down and was going to cave in for the sake of peace.
“You agreed to much worse than a date. Before the date you agreed to be my partner in a vigilante crime fighting team and before that I showed up in the back of your car bleeding.”
“Oh this just keeps getting better and better,” Felicity finds it in herself to chuckle at his outrageous story. What struck her was how earnest and sincere Oliver sounded despite all the wacky stories he was piling on her.
“I promise I’ll tell you everything in detail over dinner if you’ll give me a chance.”
Felicity glances at the ridiculously handsome man standing in front of her who was looking at her like she hung the moon. Her eyes move to the two cartons of mint chip in the frozen cooler bag.
Maybe this was a very bad idea and she was going to end up with the son of the almighty powerful Moira Queen as her stalker. Or maybe, just maybe the man standing before her was telling the truth. Maybe the world was bigger than she thought or knew.
“Okay,” she says with a warm smile.
“Really?” Oliver asks beaming at her looking both thrilled and in disbelief at the same time. He hadn’t expected this. He’d hope for the best and deep down believed they would find their way back to each other somehow but he hadn’t expected to have her all to himself right away. His reset really was a miracle.
“Yes really. Now you have to let me get back to work before I examine my very poor decision making and change my mind,” Felicity waves him off with a laugh.
“You will always be the love of my life Felicity. I’ll prove it to you in time.”
“First date remember? Let’s dial down all the love of your life stuff ok Romeo?”
Felicity leans over to give his hand a pat and he could just die of happiness. Scratch that he wasn’t going to die. Nothing going to kill him this time. He’d died more than his fair share of times and enough for Felicity’s share too.
“I shall try,” Oliver nods at her with as much dignity as he could muster while cradling the hand she touched. He was never going to wash this hand until she touched another part of him. That may sound dirty but he stood by his decision.