I know it’s been back in April since I wrote an installment to this story, but I’ve been penning fanfiction for another show I’ve become obsessed with. I’ve not forgotten my first ship, and even though I stepped away from them for a time, I will always return to my first love.
Felicity had fallen back asleep, and Oliver continued to hold her as she snuggled into him. Her breathing was deep but calm. It had always comforted him, as if every breath she took was a confirmation of their lives together. Carefully and tenderly, as not to wake her up, Oliver touched the silky texture of her hair as it lay against his chest.
After their sultry shower together, and after they took it into the bedroom, Oliver was content to just lay there and think about the last three months since he left Slabside. Not having anything planned for his immediate future, Oliver had used the time to realign himself to the life he had chosen all those years ago when he came back to Star City from the island with the life he now had. He stroked Felicity’s hair again, as if touching her was the right thing, the only thing in his life he could believe in. There had been many changes in him since those first turbulent years as the Starling City vigilante, and to be sure, his earlier dedication to his mission was the main driving force in righting wrongs, of introducing the city to justice again. Even though that justice was born in the shadows of his determination, through violence and self-preservation, Oliver began to feel a fundamental change in him.
But after meeting John, then later Felicity, Oliver began to feel a different motivation to put on his hood and go out every night to make a difference. John and Felicity began to teach him that his “skills” could be used as a positive influence in the hearts and minds of the people of Starling City. They taught him that having a core family to draw strength from was essential in making that difference he struggled with at first. He was still killing back then, and he did not think twice about firing his arrows into his targets. It was all he knew how to do, and as he told Felicity later, it kept him alive.
Certain instances of the past seven years had highlighted a jolting, shattering view of where he might have ended up if he chose to go it alone, certainly within the walls of Slabside among other times, without partners, without a big brother to lean on and the presence of love incarnate when he met his now beautiful wife. That kind of life, fulfilling and textured, was not in the original Oliver Queen playbook. And once he learned that he deserved it, he embraced that life, good and bad.
Oliver shifted on the bed and wrapped his arms around Felicity. She did not wake and he began to synch his breathing to hers. He closed his eyes and all that he thought about began to bring his dreams closer to the peace in his mind he created whenever he thought about where and how and who made the real difference in his life.
He closed his eyes and drifted off as if he did not have a care in the world.
A couple hours later, Felicity was awoken by the trilling of Oliver’s cell on the table next to his side of the bed. It was consistent, and she felt an unreasonable notion that it might be something that would once again change their lives. She did not want any more changes. All she needed right now was Oliver lying beside her, this reconnecting with him, that it seemed they had a second chance to ride off into the sunset. She almost decided to ignore the call, and was about to reach across Oliver to silence the phone, when he stirred and opened his eyes.
“Hey,” he sleep-whispered to her. “It’s okay, I’ll take it.” He reached over and picked up his phone. “Whoever and whatever you want,” he began to say as he answered the phone, and then he fell silent. He listened with an intensity to the caller and Felicity held her breath, as if bad news was about to fill the room, piercing through the bubble they created these past months.
“Are you sure,” Oliver inquired into the phone? He continued to lay still. “Alright, I will. Thanks for the call.” He clicked off the phone and didn’t say anything for a few moments.
Felicity reached up and touched his face. “Hey, who was it,” she asked?
He waited a few more seconds before he turned back to her and looked into her eyes. There was a distance in his and Felicity recognized the look. It was the one he got whenever something transformed him into the Green Arrow, an entity he has seemingly discarded when he came home for prison. Finally, he answered his wife.
“That was Captain Singh, from Central City. William’s grandparents…they…they’ve been in a car accident.”
“They were killed, Felicity.”
Both of them lie there in the bed and let the ramifications of what happened wash over them. Felicity was right after all. It was bad news, and she almost felt a need to close her heart to its disruption of their lives.
“Felicity, we have to go get William. Cambridge, right?”
He tightened his arms around her, as if her presence was an anchor he could hold onto.
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