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She sees the scars, some more faint than others, but still fresh – not the ones that she had committed to memory over the years. The mosaic of purple is splashed across the thin torso in seemingly random places, but she knows that the locations are all strategic. The thought of a boot slamming into an organ makes her bite her lip and Felicity reaches down to him.
That’s when she sees the eyes – hollowed out with no glimmer of steel that she’s come to associate with him. In fact, there’s no sign of a soul inside those green eyes and she drops to her knees.
“Oliver.”
Her fingers reach out, wanting to brush against skin – a touch would bring her hope that he hasn’t been carved out methodically. A cut here, a kick over here, a jolt of electricity right fucking there, for days that stretched into months until all that makes Oliver the Arrow, no, Oliver Queen were washed out with the blood, saliva, and tears. A bucket of water poured out onto the concrete floor, the muddied liquid twisting like a tornado until it gets sucked into the large drain with a glop, to cleanse the evidence of the murder of a soul.
He shrinks away as if he’s still trapped with no room to go anywhere, wrenching his head back only so far because he thinks there’s no space to move.
That’s when Felicity knows he’s broken – completely and irreparably so.
So when he wakes up the next morning in a panic, not knowing who he is, who they are, why he’s in the basement of a nightclub, John and Felicity exchange a glance. She recognizes the relief in her friend’s face, and knows that she feels it too.
That’s why the hushed hisses and whispers don’t drag on forever, but Roy kicks the leg of her desk before leaving the lair, rattling her computers and she knows he chose that desk on purpose. Because one word from her and they’d turn right back around and wake the sleeping man to tell him that he’s a vigilante called the Arrow. But she can’t – not after what she’s seen the night before.
Felicity feels awful for Roy. She knows that he loses something if they go through with this – the North Star that guides him through the rough terrain. (God, so rough.)
Laurel nods after throwing a glance back over her shoulder to look at her childhood friend, a lover, a man who has somehow entwined himself into every aspect of her life, and then follows Roy out, slinging her arm over his shoulder, whispering something in his ear.
Thea stares down at her brother, and a tear rolls down her face. Felicity should feel sorry for her, but the girl chose her path, to take up arms with Merlyn. In fact, the life she leads now is probably what forces her to look up at Felicity with that determined chin.
Do it, the chin says.
She kisses her brother’s forehead and exits.
Then it’s just the two of them.
No, three. John, Felicity, and him.
John closes his eyes.
“She can change his memories, make him a new person, just like that? No harm done?”
The last sentence sits in between them like an intruder. She shoves it out, skipping over the pause that John wants to dwell in to ponder over the words that he just let out: no harm done.
“Zatanna’s magic is strong, and she’s in the Justice League. Itrust her,” she replies.
“Felicity, this is – this is something we can’t undo. We’re talking about changing him into someone he’s not. Are you sure about this?” John asks, crossing his arms.
She knows he’s trying not to look at him in his deep slumber, because the image of his friend’s body draped over the table will tell him that this is something they have to do.
After all Oliver’s done, he deserves this.
“He’ll have a life, John. Without all these terrible burdens – it’ll all be gone.”
She doesn’t say the rest of it – and so will we – but she doesn’t have to because John’s arms are already around her before she can even finish her sentence.
First, they have to deal with the scars.
“Car accident? That could explain the majority of them,” John murmurs as they both peer at the photos of the man’s nearly naked body.
She nods and then runs her finger down one precise line that no crushed vehicle could cause. There’s no way around it. He can’t be completely free of a dark past.
“The tattoo?”
“One drunk night, he happened to walk into a tattoo parlor. No one will know that it’s Bratva as long as he keeps his shirt on,” John replies and then grins when he sees Felicity’s arched eyebrow. “And if he happens to run into the Russian mafia while shirtless in a rural town called Smallville, they’ll know better than to confront him about it.”
Born in a small town in Iowa, orphaned in a fire, thrown into foster care at age eight, ran away from his last foster home to work on oil rigs, wandered from city to city to support himself, only to settle in Smallville, Kansas. A rough life but a content one all the same.
It’s so unlike the life of Oliver Queen, but it still fits him. Somehow, she can’t really imagine him living in the suburbs with a big house, with a green yard, with a wife and –
She tells herself that the scars keep him from having that life, because people would question, he would question, and it’s not like Zatanna can throw in a real life wife and flesh and blood kids – no matter how strong her magic.
You’re so selfish. You can’t bear to give him that life unless you’re in it with him. (Shut up, goddammit, shut the hell up.)
All it comes down to is his new name.
Felicity picks a common one: David.
“David Archer?” John repeats when she says it out loud softly, feeling the roll of her tongue as it tries the name on.
It’s her one line to him, one gossamer thread that still links him to her. In case the nightmares return and he hears the familiar whip of the arrow in the middle of the night, he’ll have the name to tug on, to chew on.
“Please,” she whispers, looking up at her very best friend in the world.
John places his large hand on her shoulder.
“Okay. David Archer, it is.”
They don’t watch Zatanna do it. In fact, the Justice League insists on taking care of the whole ordeal of transporting his unconscious body in a hospital in Smallville, where he will wake up from his coma as David Archer, lone wolf and wanderer. It’s better if he doesn’t catch any glimpse of the faces that are etched in his past only to be seared off forever.
Better for him or for them?
Felicity keeps a feed in his hospital room. Maybe it’s creepy and she’s being a stalker. But they need this. The feed is always on in the lair while he’s still unconscious and Team Arrow keep watch as they go on about their nights, saving Starling City from crime – keeping Oliver’s fight alive. One night, Felicity spies Roy patting the top of her screen before going out into battle, and then Laurel eventually follows suit after she dons her black leather and mask.
It becomes a ritual for them, for the ones who go out into the field, risking their lives every night.
It’s only when Felicity gets shot (once again in the shoulder) does she kiss her fingers and gently touch the screen.
A few months later, Laurel yelps and points at the live footage. He’s sitting up, looking completely bewildered, scratching the back of his head. Then he stares down at the IV poking through from his hand. Nurses and doctors rush into the room, crowding around him with their clipboards and stethoscopes.
Oliver always hated those, he had mentioned once. He hated how cold the metal felt against his chest when he was a child. He doesn’t seem to mind now, however, as they lift his arms and do whatever the hell that they do.
David Archer is awake.
Felicity swallows and picks up her phone to call Thea.
It’s time to bury Oliver Queen once more.
Her fingers clench around the fresh dirt, the grime seeping in between her flesh and nails. With a quick toss, the little stones tap against the empty coffin and it sounds a little like rain.
Oliver Jonas Queen officially died in a motorcycle accident three days ago. Only family and friends were invited to his funeral, and so, Felicity, John, Thea, Roy, and Laurel stand around his second grave.
Here lies Oliver, brother, friend, lover, mentor, leader –
Here lies Arrow.
Roy jams his fists into the pockets of his red hoodie, and his eyes flash towards Felicity and John.
He’s not dead, his eyes say.
But he is, she thinks back.
Then you killed him, they reply.
The team members take turns staying in Smallville for a few days, watching over him, making sure no former enemies catch wind of the fact that he’s still alive and attack him when he’s most vulnerable. Martha and Jonathan Kent reassure them during each trip that they’re keeping their eye on him, and that helps Felicity sleep at night.
The Kents with their break of dawn starts, hard work, warm lasagna, and baked cookies would cushion him, protect him, give him the sort of care that he hasn’t received in ages.
She stays in the foundry, ensuring that he’s got everything he needs, through digital means. Money in the account? Social security? Driver’s license renewed? Done, done, and done.
Laurel comes back from her stint and puffs up her cheeks before letting out the air slowly. Her hair, more blonde now, rustles at the act.
“He’s different.”
“He’s got implanted memories now. He’s not the Oliver we know anymore,” Felicity explains gently but the woman glares at her before settling back down into a reflective stare.
“I know, but to see it with your own eyes…Oliver – Ollie’s really gone,” she whispers.
When they all leave, Felicity brings up the facial recognition software and starts searching through street camera footages. A red box flashes and she holds her breath as she presses “OK”.
Even in only black and white, she understands what Laurel is saying. He’s leaner, his stance much more relaxed, and Felicity nearly gasps when she happens across footage of his side profile.
An easy smile full of unadulterated contentment as he nods hello to a stranger crossing the street. Right above the smile, wise eyes that pull people in from their chaos, welcoming them into a peace that was earned through a past made up of stories. Some good, some harsh.
Fake stories.
But that’s the point, isn’t it, Felicity thinks.
Their first kiss was in the hospital, the day of little Sara’s birth. She doesn’t want to go there. It was warm, beautiful, and sad all in one short moment as he turned her around, the last of the sunlight shining on them both.
Their second kiss was in a broken elevator, a few seconds after it hurtled down thirteen stories and halted just above the second floor. It was a reconnaissance mission that went horribly wrong. They clutched each other through the entire fall, Oliver desperately trying to position his body to protect her from most harm.
She kissed him; furious at him that he had allowed them to be apart when they could have been killed (flattened into pancakes, mind him, there are better ways to go) before they could be together.
The pure idiocy of him, the noble prat, the asshole that couldn’t get his act –
“This is bullshit,” she hissed just before pressing her lips against his.
Felicity’s only thinking of those kisses now, because another man has his hand on the small of her back. Instead of leaning into his arms, she stiffens, and he immediately lets go, the gentleman that he is.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
How many times had Oliver asked her that question?
She grabs her drink from the bar and downs it.
“No, not really.”
Her Mini Cooper survives the trip to Kansas and Felicity lifts her worn body from the car to enter a diner in town. The waitress gives her a pleasant smile and recommends their bacon burger. When she sinks her teeth into the juicy beef, the pickles, ketchup, (is that horseradish?) lettuce, and finally the bacon, Felicity looks at her waitress and wonders if she’s an angel from above.
“Long journey?” Jenny asks.
“Very,” she replies, wiping her mouth with a napkin.
“What brings you to Smallville?”
Felicity pauses before she says, “Memories.”
The waitress interprets her reply the wrong way, as she predicted, and smiles, “So you’ve been here before?”
Before she can lie, the door opens, letting in a strong breeze that blows her napkins away. Her heart skips a beat for some reason as she reaches down to pick them up and before she even hears Jenny breathlessly calling out to her next patron by name, Felicity knows who has just walked in.
“David! What can I get you?’
David Archer grabs a seat at the counter and orders himself a strong black coffee with an egg muffin. He doesn’t even glance her way, even though with her grey dress and heels, she’s a fish out of water.
“Thanks, Jen,” he murmurs with appreciation as he wraps his hand around the mug of coffee.
Felicity sees his fingers grazing hers, completely by accident and only for a second, but her stomach hollows out when she sees the slight blush rising on Jenny’s cheeks. She stares at him, wondering if he’s blushing too, but there’s nothing.
She lets out a small breath and is about to turn away, when she catches it.
There are slight crinkles around his eyes, a smile tucked away, kept only for himself. Felicity’s seen it so many times after her brutally embarrassing unintended innuendos, which stopped being so embarrassing and unintentional as time passed.
Oh.
Oh. In her mind, she lunges forward to catch her heart before it shatters into a million pieces on the tiled floor. (He’s David now. Your Oliver’s been long gone. He’s already dead. This isn’t him. You knew he would eventually find someone – a man as hot as him, even if he does wear flannel shirts now. Stop it, you’re fine. Stop it. Sto-) Her heart hits the ground and she knows that she never stood a chance.
So this is what it’s like to be heartbroken.
“How’s the burger?” Jenny asks.
“Good! Amazing! I mean, it couldn’t be more amazing than this. It’s like having an orgasm in your mouth, really – which, oh God, so inappropriate. So sorry. Ah, but listen, I think – I think I have to go. Coming here was a bad idea. Really terrible, awful idea. Could I get my check?” Felicity gushes, wiping her fingers, gathering her things, busying herself, trying not to look at him.
The tears start to flow and Jenny steps forward.
“H-hey. You okay?” she whispers with true concern.
Felicity feels his eyes now. Of course she does, she’s tuned to his gaze now, even if it’s a complete stranger’s. She tosses a twenty dollar bill onto the table and swerves to avoid clipping Jenny’s shoulder.
“Thank you so much. Keep the change,” she whispers.
She starts the car, sobbing openly now that she’s somewhat enclosed in her own space, but she knows that everyone in the diner is staring out the large windows into the parking lot, into her car, so Felicity drives away before she can blow her nose.
When David buys a house eight months later, Felicity asks Laurel if she can join her on her night patrol. Laurel only grabs an extra helmet, tosses it to her, blows a kiss towards Arrow’s bow that’s mounted on the wall like a memorial, and then saunters out to her motorcycle.
She straddles the seat and holds onto Black Canary’s waist as the engine roars to life. The wind hits her face, her eyes hurt, her dress hikes up and this was one stupid idea. (There’s no way she’s going to ask Laurel to turn back around because she feels uncomfortable.)
Laurel takes her through the outskirts of the Glades, nothing too dangerous, and only glances back when Felicity tightens her grip. After awhile, she stops by an abandoned warehouse to crash a drug deal and helps Felicity off the bike.
Felicity bashes one of the dealers in the head with a thin sheet of scrap metal she found on the ground, knocking him unconscious. Laurel grins as she makes short work of the buyer, stringing him up, his shirt falling over his head.
“Good one,” she remarks as Felicity settles back onto the bike.
“Thanks,” she replies.
It’s only after they’re back on the road does Laurel ask, “So what’s really going on?”
Cars drive past and she swallows.
“He bought a house. I think he’s moving in with someone.”
Laurel’s shoulders tense up and then relax back.
“Do you think he’s happy?” she asks.
When the Black Canary’s voice carries over the wind feeling like soft fleece, Felicity smiles.
“Yeah, I think he is.”
Malcolm Merlyn finds out about David Archer, and Team Arrow flocks to Smallville in a caravan of a Mini Cooper, an A.R.G.U.S. car, and a motorcycle. Not exactly subtle, but they have to protect him at all cost. Felicity sets up her wireless in her car at a predetermined strategic spot. Roy and Laurel are on David, covering him as he goes to work, to the diner to pick up Jenny, and to his house. John follows Merlyn, keeping an eye out for good locations to pull out his sniper rifle in case things go south.
Thea is out of play because of, well, obvious reasons, but she gave them her blessing to kill that motherfucker if he even touches a hair on her brother’s head. Even in her messed up world, her brother trumps over everyone else.
But even with all the preparation, Merlyn’s unexpected followers throw everything out of whack, and while everyone’s busying fighting, David ends up pulling into the same gas station that Felicity’s in.
“Shit,” she hisses.
He steps out of his truck, gives his neighbor a smile, before grabbing the gas pump.
His smile falters when he hears a noise – a blonde woman in impossibly high heels screaming at him.
“OLIVER!”
She’s looking past him and he realizes she must be yelling to someone behind him. So he turns to see and freezes, a small droplet of gas dripping from the pump onto the concrete.
A hooded man dressed in black with a bow and arrow strides towards him. After he takes in the whole ridiculous getup, David sees the man pull back the arrow and it’s pointed directly at him.
It’s all in slow motion as the man releases the arrow and the blonde woman slams David down to the floor, twisting her body in hopes of blocking the oncoming weapon.
But it’s too late.
He feels something tear through his skin, piercing his muscle, and he gasps out more in shock than in pain.
“No, no, no. Please, Oliver,” she whispers.
He tries to tell her that she’s got the wrong person, pleasantly as he can with an arrow sticking out of him, but he only widens his eyes as the pain travels through him, washing over him like a tidal wave.
“Look at me,” she whispers. “You’re okay. Just look at me.”
So he does, because something in her voice tells him that her promises are true. He looks into her eyes and he’s breathless yet again. Not because of the arrow, but because they’re familiar – in dreams, in déjà vu moments, in – in diners.
“You,” he rasps out, reaching out to touch her face.
He blacks out before his fingers can make it to her pale skin.
Once he’s safe and conscious, David demands answers, but John’s able to explain it all away by impersonating a CIA agent, apologizing for the mix up.
“You see, the guy in the hood made a mistake. He mistook you for someone else and we tracked him down. He will never bother you again,” John says with gritted teeth.
He will have to add another person to his kill count, but there is no usual flow of guilt, only relief. His friend, no, Archer, eyes him with a suspicious glare and it almost makes him want to laugh. How many times had Oliver thrown him that look? John’s about to bow out before he slips up or tears up, but the man speaks again.
“What about her? The blonde woman. Is she okay?”
Something in him groans. (God, does it always have to be so fucking torturous for them? Even when it’s not him.)
“She’s fine. She’s okay.”
John says this not for Archer, but for the Oliver inside of him. Because, no matter how many times Felicity tell him that the man is gone, that Zatanna’s magic would never waver, he doesn’t believe it for a second that Oliver is not in there, hidden in the dark, slowly healing.
He wants to embrace him, his comrade, his partner, before he leaves, but he has a feeling that would only increase the man’s suspicions.
“Take care, David.”
She couldn’t protect him. She failed the city by not protecting the man who saved the lives of so many citizens, time and time again.
Most of all, she failed him.
It’s over. She’s done with Starling City. She’s done with Arrow, his ghost, his legacy. After John finally let her go (really, his blessing’s the only one that matters to her heart), she makes her way to the east coast.
She settles on the coast of Maine. She’s got enough money to rent out a house on the shore, only a few hundred feet away from a towering lighthouse. There, she reads the stack of novels that she’s never gotten to read, hangs out on the docks to feel the breeze on her face and to listen to the seagulls, eats clams and lobsters to her heart’s content, and sleeps.
Sleep. A full eight hours, some days even more.
It would be paradise if it weren’t for Oliver’s face she sometimes sees in the storefronts’ glass reflection, in the mirror, in her dreams, or in her nightmares.
“Dig,” someone says from behind him, late one night in the foundry.
John whirls around with his side arm, ready to fire, but stops in his tracks when he sees Oliver, no, Archer. His heart skips a beat and he knows his breath his hitched, but what in hell is he doing in the foundry?
“David. What – how did you –” he starts.
The man steps forward and shakes his head.
“Dig,” he says again, his voice tight with fury and regret.
Slowly, John puts down his gun and then embraces Oliver hard, tugging his sweater down kind of hard. His tears roll down his face, and he can feel Oliver’s heart thumping. He steps away and asks, “How?”
Oliver only responds with a strained, “Why?”
John has to sit and Felicity’s chair is closest so he slowly settles down into it, noticing the pain in his friend’s eyes as they take in the mess of Belly Burger wrappers at her desk – something she would never, ever allow.
“John, please,” Oliver begs.
So he starts at the beginning – the night they found him, huddled in his own pool of blood.
Felicity finishes the last page of her book and carefully sets it on the pebbles. She sighs and looks up at the sunset. The blood red seeps into the horizon, the outer edges turning into dark purple.
When the sun finally sets, the light from the lighthouse beams out onto the sea, and she stands up, ready to turn in.
A bird caws over her head and she stops. It’s too beautiful tonight to just let the water be still, and a sudden desire to go for a swim overwhelms her. With a smile, Felicity peels off her clothes one by one until she’s only in her bra and underwear.
She squeals, ignoring the thought that someone might be watching her, and races to the water. Felicity claps her hands to her mouth as the cold water laps at her feet, then calves, and then her thighs. She brings her hands down and laughs, giddy with joy.
She splashes around for who knows how long before her leg cramps up. Suddenly the water’s too much to handle, and Felicity can barely move, her mouth only opening for air when her head bobs up and breaks the surface.
It takes awhile for her to realize that she’s drowning. Even if she could scream out for help, there’s no one around for miles to save her.
She’s going to die here, in the sea.
She’s about to die and all she can think about is Oliver and wonders how he was able to survive in the water (oh but wait he had a lifeboat, his father saved him, too bad she doesn’t have a father to help her, poor Donna, who’s in Vegas not knowing that her daughter’s about to drown, about to leave her all alone when they’ve only just rekindled their relationship).
Then Felicity sees him, swimming towards her, grabbing her by the waist, gasping for air. (Oh right, hallucinations.) He yanks her up and her head breaks the surface again.
She breathes in, and then coughs out water. (Do hallucinations normally get this vivid?) Her flesh burns as Oliver drags her alongside him, kicking his legs powerfully against the current.
When they finally reach the shore, Felicity wheezes and coughs out more water before slumping over on top of the pebbles. Oliver’s face looms over her and she stares up at him, her chest heaving still. Water drips from his chin and onto her nose.
It gets bright and she winces as the lamp from the lighthouse shines down on them. A few seconds later, the beacon moves on, away from her (them) to cast light onto another poor soul.
The sounds of their breaths intermingle with the gentle hushes of the waves lapping at the shore.
It’s him. It’s really, really him.
He reaches for her face and then brushes her hair away. Still a little breathless, he closes his eyes and says,
“Felicity.”