Chapter Text
Felicity sighed as she sat before the three monitors, each one taunting her with information and infinite possibilities. And yet technology was failing her. All this accessibility and none of it could tell her what she wanted to know most. Pulling up yet another facial recognition software that had been running overnight, Felicity spent what felt like hours cross-referencing every possible frame. Fidgeting and cracking her neck and pacing and patting her fingers against the keys impatiently…she waited. Only to come up with exactly zero matches.
Felicity slumped, all her energy dissipating as yet another flicker of hope went out. There was no sign of him anywhere. The trail had gone cold last week. But she’d been hanging on, trying every possible angle, using every blessed I.Q. point she had. All to no avail. The League was even craftier than they’d estimated.
Yanking off her glasses, Felicity rubbed her eyes. “Where are you, Oliver?” she breathed, a whisper to herself, a plea to whatever elusive fate gods were out there listening. As she opened her eyes, something green in her peripheral vision captured her attention. Spinning and putting her glasses back on and hoping…she saw it was the fern.
Gulping down irrational disappointment, Felicity rose and approached the little plant, sitting on the table exactly where he’d left it. She smiled despite herself. It was the only thing green she had left of him. Frowning, she suddenly wondered who’d been watering the plant this week. She’d been so focused on finding Oliver, she’d completely forgotten about it. John must have been taking care of it.
Reaching out, she ran the thin, bristling leaves in between her fingers. Initially, the plant’s texture always felt different than one would expect; but leaves seemed to get softer the longer you touched them. Everything one encountered changed the longer you were in its presence. Like someone she knew.
And then, before she could really put any thought into why she was doing it, Felicity leaned down to smell the fern. It didn’t really have much of an aroma or odor of any kind. Ferns weren’t flowers after all. But for some reason drinking in fresh, botanical air gave her comfort she didn’t know how to describe. The plant reminded her of him, and she couldn’t even breathe properly when he wasn’t here.
The foundry door banged opened, and Felicity heard the distinctive sound of leather rubbing and rapid footsteps. Roy.
Felicity sighed, tilting her head as she continued to study the fern. “The newest software couldn’t find anything. No sign of him anywhere. It’s like he’s vanished off the planet...you know, digitally speaking. I can try running our latest contact through a different database. I think we may have some resources at work. I’ll have to talk to Ray—”
As she turned, she stopped, her mouth dropping open, and every thought she’d been thinking a mile a minute came crashing to halt. Felicity clung to the table desperately, needing it for support to keep herself from falling to the floor in shock.
In her rambling she hadn’t noticed that the man in the room with her wasn’t wearing red. He was wearing green. His green.
In one fluid motion, he lifted his hood and his unmasked face met hers.
Felicity felt all the air in her body expel. Her throat went dry. She couldn’t even blink for fear that he’d disappear the next second. “Oliver” was all she managed to whisper.
He came to her then, taking her in his arms. She didn’t know what she was expecting—a familiar hand on her shoulder, a long, bear-sized hug, perhaps, or even a lingering kiss on her forehead. What she did not anticipate, however, was Oliver grabbing her chin and pulling her lips to his, practically crashing into her with so much force.
Shocked, she couldn’t respond at first. But he didn’t seem to care, as he carried the movement for both of them, pulling her body closer to his, deepening the kiss. Her head began to buzz and spin, and Felicity dizzily held onto him. She began kissing him back, desperately, savoring the way his hands felt on her back and his warmth radiated around and through her.
Their rhythm changed. Oliver had initiated a rapid and exhausting kiss, but now they were taking their time. She was losing oxygen, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t going to fight to end this, not when he was clearly trying so hard to hold onto her. Felicity had never experienced him this way before. Sure, their first kiss had been wonderful, passionate and pure. But this...this kiss was fierce. She felt herself weakening, having to cling to his jacket for dear life just to stay vertical. Oliver kissed her with more strength and intensity than Felicity ever thought he was willing to offer her. She knew he was all those things and more; now he was finally acting.
Oliver suddenly broke away to let them breathe. He held her still, pressing his forehead to hers, practically heaving and blowing air into her face. And Felicity suddenly felt cold and deficient at the loss of his touch.
“Wait,” he gasped. He swallowed once before continuing, “You and Ray. Are you—”
“What? No, no. There is no me and Ray.” She paused for emphasis, gauging his response. “I don’t think there ever was going to be.”
That seemed to alleviate him, as he let out an easy exhale. Something behind her suddenly caught his eye. His frown deepened. “What day is it?”
“Um..." she turned to follow his line of sight, realizing he'd seen the fern. She spun back around. "It’s Wednesday."
He just groaned, his grip on her arms tightening. “The date, Felicity.”
“Oh. Oh. January 14th...2015.” She enunciated each syllable in the year and squinted her eyes, wondering just how much the weeks away with the League had impacted his mental faculties.
“Dammit.” He released her and pushed himself a few inches back. “I came back too soon.”
Ok. Now he was just pissing her off. “Came back too soon? What are you talking about? Were you just going to run around with the League of Assassins for another six months and then suddenly pop back into our lives at your earliest convenience? Well, I’m sorry Oliver if—”
“Felicity,” he sighed, cupping her cheek and rubbing his gloved thumb across her skin. She shivered. “Oh, Felicity.” He stroked her hair back and pressed their foreheads together again.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she breathed.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re seeing a ghost.”
He swallowed. “It’s cause I am.”
Drawing back just enough, she examined him with caution, trying to pinpoint what he was thinking. Felicity saw then. She saw what her bliss-crazed mind had failed to detect. And now that the waves of shock were fading, she noticed: gray flakes of hair around his ears and in his beard; wrinkles about the eyes that hadn’t been there last year. His skin was darker. His face was harder. He looked older. Five weeks couldn’t age someone, even Oliver, that rapidly.
“Oliver?” She pulled back further, cautiously stepping out of his embrace, a tentative hand still lingering on his arm.
His jaw tightened, a strange grimace playing at his lips. “I guess I should’ve planned for this. You were always too smart for me.”
“Planned for what? Oliver, you’re not making any sense.”
He turned away, dragging a hand down his face. So many questions starting bubbling to the surface of her mind that she struggled to know which one to ask first—
The computer dinged, informing her ears of a new development. Felicity forced herself to turn away from a rather distraught-looking Oliver. Suddenly she wondered how in the world he had managed to get back to Starling City without her knowing. She had established three rows of checkpoints for that very purpose. Maybe this was an alert coming in too late. Though that seemed highly improbable, considering all the work she’d put into making sure she knew the absolute instant he made an appearance.
Felicity approached the screens, expecting to see some trivial update or the facial recognition coming back negative again. Instead, she was surprised to find an alert—a camera had finally spotted Oliver. She smiled. Yeah, no kidding. No doubt it was a Verdant camera. Felicity opened the file to check the time stamp and was shocked to find that it was in fact Oliver. Only he wasn’t at Verdant. He wasn’t even on this continent from the looks of things. Oliver Queen, clothed in tight, form-fitting, all black garb was talking to a woman with long dark hair. Felicity sucked in a tight breath when the woman turned and faced the camera. Nyssa Al Ghul.
Felicity started to analyze every pixel of the file, already running recording and cross-referencing programs, when she suddenly caught the time. It was twelve hours ahead of Starling. And it was a live feed. Suddenly she remembered the man in the room with her, and stopped typing, slowly, placing longer pauses between types, so he wouldn’t notice right away.
This allowed her to fully watch Oliver, her Oliver, chat with Nyssa and two other League members joining the conversation—if their black attire was anything to go by. Her heart was doing somersaults. He was alive. She had finally found him. Which begged the question…who was with her now? Felicity’s eyes slid to the right, catching sight of the top drawer which held the knives. She had to act fast. If this man was anything like her Oliver, then there would be no chance for do-overs.
3...2...1... She ceased typing and darted over to the drawer, shoving it open, and grabbing the first weapon she could. Sliding it out of its sheath, she held it up defensively. “Who the hell are you?!” she shouted.
Oliver—no, not Oliver—the man in green who looked very much like Oliver—held his hands up in surrender. Remarkably calm, he didn’t even flinch. His eyes just shifted with tight precision between her and what she held in her hand. He nodded to the weapon. “Why don’t you put that down before you hurt yourself?”
“No,” she cried, defiantly holding onto it all the more tightly. “You do not get to tell me what to do, Ol…or whoever you are.”
His face twisted as though she’d slapped him. “It’s me, Felicity.”
“No,” she pressed, thrusting the knife out further for good measure. She tried to stay firm, but she could hear the falter in her voice. “No no no, because Oliver Queen is right there”—she pointed to the screen—“talking with Nyssa Al Ghul, so unless this is one of those weird genetic things, which statistically is very unlikely, you need to explain to me what is going on right now—”
“I’m from the future,” he stated, his words hovering in the silence that followed.
Felicity’s hand shook. She didn’t want to believe him. She couldn’t believe him, because it’s just not possible. And yet...his appearance and the way he behaved and the fact that she could tell he meant every word he said... Felicity dropped the knife. The clang sounded across the foundry, until the last of its echoes faded into utter silence. Finally, Felicity spoke again, shaking her head. “H-h-how...how far in the future?”
He sighed. “Well, since it’s 2015 here...” he hesitated, throwing her an odd glance, clearly choosing to reveal only what was minimally necessary. “Let’s just say it’s a few years.”
Felicity crossed her arms. Well, it was good to know that apparently Oliver was just as stubbornly obtuse in the future as he was in the present.
“There’s more.”
She laughed once without humor, her lips trembling with shock and fear and confusion, as she trudged back over to her chair and plopped down into it.
He paused again and made a face. She knew that face at least. He was trying to convince himself not to go through with whatever he was about to tell her. At the last second though, he just tipped his head and pulled off his left glove. Gently, he approached her, holding out his hand for her to see. The light bounced off the metal, and there it was: a silver wedding ring.
Her gaze rapidly darted up and down between his eyes and the ring. “W-we...?”
He just nodded solemnly.
She cleared her throat. “Um okay. So...so why aren’t you...?” She was going to say “Why aren’t you with your wife, who is apparently future me?” But she didn’t have to. He seemed to know where her sentence was headed, and the look on his face was enough to tell her: whatever future he’d come from clearly did not bear good things for the two of them.
Was she dead in this hypothetical future of theirs? Did she leave him for another man? That idea seemed utterly ridiculous to Felicity. But then again, earlier today, the idea of a Futuristic Oliver Queen, her future husband, showing up in the foundry—meanwhile Present Oliver Queen was selling his soul to the League of Assassins—had seemed rather far-fetched as well. So maybe anything was possible.
He kneeled down in front of her, placing his left hand on her arm rest, as though to accentuate the fact that he was wearing a wedding ring. “I’m not from here, Felicity,” he said simply, as if that explained everything.
“What do you mean?”
He pressed his lips together and then answered her hurriedly. “Eight years from now, Ray Palmer is going to create a device that will allow people to cross worlds.” He scrunched his eyebrows together as he studied her with that commanding gaze of his. “The truth is I don’t really know how it all works myself. The important thing is that it got me here. To you.”
“Cross worlds? Like, as in, parallel universes?”
He smiled with pride that she had caught on so quickly.
“Why should I believe you?”
“Look into my eyes, Felicity, and tell me if I’m lying to you.” He spoke with such conviction and the intense way that he watched her...it was very much the Oliver she knew and loved. No. He wasn’t lying to her. So far as she could tell, he seemed convinced everything he said was the truth. That didn’t rule out the possibility that this Oliver could be one step shy of insanity.
“So why are you here?” she finally asked, her voice shaking as she tried to remain calm and collected.
“Because in my world, I lost my wife. I need you, Felicity,” he pleaded, his voice gentle and desperate. But his eyes betrayed him. These beautiful blue eyes were darker and more threatening than the ones she remembered. His voice changed then, a deep undertone confirming her suspicions as he slipped his hand around her wrist. “And since I can’t live without you, I’ll take whatever version of you I can get.”