#could not evict him from my mind while washing the dye from my hair

[vampiricsheep]

if you had to shove an OC into a cheesy booktok-worthy book who would it be and why

[adiwriting]

My North Star

Oliver and Felicity have been best friends since 1st grade. So when Felicity is struggling to get over the death of her boyfriend, there’s only one person that can help make things okay again. 

This is part two of a three part mini-verse. Part One “My Compass” can be found here. Shout out to @acheaptrickandacheesyoneline for the quick beta! Enjoy! 

Boston 2007

Felicity stares at her reflection in the mirror trying to figure out who this girl is staring back at her. She used to think she knew. She’d been so confident about who she was and where she was going in life. Now she looks at the girl in the mirror and barely recognizes her.

How crazy that two whole months can change everything.

She leans in closer and inspects the dark circles under her eyes that appear permanently set in. It’s been two months since Cooper’s arrest. She hasn’t be able to sleep without waking up from nightmares since the day she watched the feds carry him away. She’s barely left her dorm room and even then, she’d only done so to visit Cooper in prison. Then he died.

Two months since Cooper convinced her to try her algorithm out on the Department of Education and every since then her life has been a downward spiral.

She’s not sure who she is anymore, but she’s positive that she doesn’t want to be this girl in the mirror anymore.

She closes her eyes against a fresh wave of emotion and takes a steadying breath. Mind over matter. Mind over matter. If she tells herself that she’s not going to cry today — that she’s not going to have a panic attack — she won’t.

While her world ended two weeks ago when Cooper took his own life, time wasn’t kind enough to stop. The world kept on spinning. Things kept moving without her.

Today is the day she joins the world again. She can’t continue on like this. She can’t keep the rest of the world blocked out forever. She’s spent the past two months in virtual solitude. In a fit of rage, she’d destroyed her laptop and phone and disconnected her internet. She didn’t want to hack anymore. She didn’t want the reminder of Cooper and what he’d lost his life over and she didn’t trust herself not to give into temptation.

Between that and her refusal to open the door for anyone, the only person she’s communicated with is Myron. He’s been forcing food on her everyday in an effort to at least make sure she doesn’t waste away into nothingness.

He’s been worried that she might take Cooper’s lead and end it all.

But as tempting as that offer has been at times, she knows she could never kill herself. She’s too cowardly. Too selfish.

Cooper deserved so much better than the girl he got.

No more.

If she doesn’t start showing up for classes soon, she’s going to have to repeat the entire semester. She’s already missed her midterms and is failing her classes for the first time in her life. But she’s done the math. If she starts going to classes now and aces her finals, she can pull of passing grades in each of her classes.

So that’s the plan. That’s what Cooper would have wanted for her. He hadn’t taken the fall for her to be some depressive MIT washout that never makes anything of herself. She needs to live her life. If not for herself, then for Cooper.

She opens her medicine cabinet, intent on brushing her teeth, only to realize that she’s out of toothpaste. A quick check of her drawers tells her that she’s already gone through all of her backups.

She’s going to have to leave her room to go buy some.

After 8 weeks of being a shut in, she’s going to have to brave the outside world.

“You can do this,” she says to her reflection.

Can you really though? The voice in her head mocks her.

She spends twenty minutes tracking down her purse, which she finally finds buried under old carryout containers. By the time she locates it, she’s tired enough that she nearly crawls back into bed, but forces herself to walk out the door before she loses her nerve. She looks like a walking nightmare, she’s sure, but she can’t be bothered to care. She doesn’t have the energy for things like makeup or washing her hair. It’s taking everything in her just to put one foot in front of the other and keep walking towards the elevator. The temptation to turn around and go back is real.

She manages to make it to Walgreens without a mental breakdown, which she takes as a win. In fact, the fresh air feels good. For the first time in weeks, it doesn’t feel like an elephant is sitting on her chest or like she’s going to crawl out of her skin. If it weren’t for the constant ache where her heart used to be, she would almost say she’s back to normal.

She grabs a cart and starts stocking up on the essentials that she’ll need after 2 months of not shopping. She’s grabbed milk, cereal, tampons, and is on her way to grab toothpaste when she stops at the end of the makeup aisle. She’s not sure what makes her stop, but she stares at the display for new long lasting lipcolor longer than is probably natural.  

The models in the picture look so carefree. They are smiling in a way that Felicity’s not sure she’s ever smiled. Has she ever been that happy in her life? She struggles to think.

For so many years she’s felt scarred by tragedy. First with her dad leaving, then growing up under the constant fear of eviction, having to leave Starling to move in with her grandparents, and now Cooper?

Felicity was never meant to be one of those happy people. She’s never been a girl meant for pink lipstick and flirty dresses. That stuff is meant for bubblegum chewing mindless blondes who have nothing to worry about but chipped nail polish. And Felicity? She’s never been at a point in her life where she’s even come close to that kind of peace.

Maybe there were moments. Glimpse of possibilities that things could be different. Fourth of July’s spent in the Glades… Trips to the zoo with a tiny, chatty brunette… Ice skating near the Exchange building… Late night conversations on the phone with her best friend once her grandparents when to sleep…

But they were just moments and they felt like a lifetime ago.

Felicity shakes her head.

She doesn’t want to think about the fact that most of her carefree moments involve Oliver and not the boyfriend she’s been crying over the last several weeks. Her crush on Oliver died back in high school when she came to terms with the fact that she would never be the kind of girl Oliver would ever date.

Oliver dates girls like the ones in the lipstick ad: Gorgeous, tanned, and not a care in the world girls. Felicity is nothing like those girls.

It must be nice, she thinks, staring at them longingly. She used to make fun of girls like that, but now she envies them. They probably don’t have boyfriends who get arrested and confess to crimes on their behalf and end up killing themselves.

Felicity doesn’t think about it, she picks up one of the brightly colored lipsticks and places it in her cart, quickly followed by a less intense eyeliner and mascara. She picks out new makeup brushes and eyeshadow kits. Several brightly colored nailpolishes make their way into her cart as well.

She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’ll never actually wear anything she’s buying. She can’t pull it off and it’s so opposite of what she usually wears, but still, she feels compelled. Compelled to start over, to become someone new. Somebody she can look in the mirror and be proud of. Somebody deserving of the sacrifice that Cooper made for her.

After she finishes in the makeup aisle, she heads straight for the hair color aisle. Her roots have started to grow out and her purple is washed out and gross. She really needs to color her hair again this weekend if she wants to convince her teachers that she’s no longer a total mess and worth their time. She reaches out for the midnight black that she always buys, and somehow, she ends up picking up a shade of blonde, not unlike her mother’s.

You need to dress how you want others to see you, Felicity, she can hear her mom’s voice in her head. She rolls her eyes and puts the dye back on the shelf before she realizes that it’s not the worst idea in the world. She may be broken beyond repair on the inside — she can’t do anything about that — but she can fix her physical appearance. Maybe if she starts dressing like those happy models in the picture, one day she’ll actually feel like that.

“Fake it til you make it, I guess,” she says, and puts several boxes of blonde dye in her cart. Lord knows how many boxes it’ll take to get her from black to blonde.

She heads towards the cashier and tries not to think about how much money she is spending as she rings everything up. As she swipes her credit card, she realizes there is something else her mom may have been right about: retail therapy.

If she’s going to do this, she’s going to need more than some new hair and makeup. She’s going to need a whole new look. When she leaves Walgreens, she realizes that the temptation to go home and crawl right back into bed is gone. Instead she finds herself walking down the street towards the trendy boutiques near campus.

Go big or go home.

****

It takes several rounds of bleach over two days before Felicity finally arrives at a shade she’s happy with and the change is drastic. For the first time in her life, she actually feels like the daughter of Donna Smoak. She’s blonde. Like, legit blonde.

It’s different. It’s certainly going to take her awhile to get used to it, but she kinda likes it. It feels like a fresh start. A change she’d desperately needed.

Now, she doesn’t have to be the sad girl that got her boyfriend killed. She can just be Felicity. Everyday, normal Felicity. A girl who worries over normal things: like passing her finals, and bills, and whatever else normal girls stress over.

She lets her hair air dry and is pleasantly surprised to see that, while it’s dried curly, it’s not as frizzy as it usually is. It reminds her of one of her favorite pictures of herself: the one of her and Oliver holding sparklers from middle school. That thought makes her smile for the first time in a long time.

She moves to pick up her phone and text Oliver to see if he remembered that night, only to remember that she doesn’t have a phone and she hasn’t spoken to Oliver in months. She tries to remember the last time she’d seen him, and can vaguely recall a lunch during spring semester last year. Things between them have been strange ever since she’d started dating Cooper but Felicity had never taken the time to try and figure out why.

She’d been so caught up in the feeling of being in love for the first time that she’d never really stopped to notice that she’d lost her best friend in the process. She wonders if the giant hole in her heart isn’t only because of Cooper, but also because of Oliver. She misses him. He would have been the first person to drag her out of bed these last few weeks and do whatever it took to get her out of her funk. He would have helped dull the pain for her felt over yet another loss.

Felicity glances over at the clock and sees that it’s 7pm. If she hurries, she can probably catch Oliver before he heads out to the bars for the night. It would be nice to see him again and hang out. If she’s being honest with herself, it would even be nice to go out and hit the town with him. Getting mindlessly drunk sounds promising and besides, didn’t she promise herself that she would start doing normal college things? Getting dressed up and going to bars on a Saturday night is certainly what normal kids her age do.

She breaks out her new makeup and tries to resist the urge to paint her eyeliner on too thick or use her purple lipstick instead of the new pink one that makes her self-conscious. It’ll take awhile to feel truly comfortable with her new look, but she can be objective enough to know she looks halfway decent. And besides, it doesn’t really matter anyways. Oliver won’t care what she looks like and she’s not looking for a boyfriend tonight.

She’s just looking for a night of fun. A reprieve.

She quickly changes into one of her new dresses and grabs her purse, double checking for her ID, money, and keys before heading out the door and towards the bus stop.

As she waits for the bus, she tries to ignore the college boys cat calling her and making her doubt her decision to leave her room. What if she looks ridiculous? What if everyone can see right through her and know that she’s not one of those girls? Can people see how utterly broken she is?

What if Oliver laughs at her?

She’s about to turn around when the bus shows up and the crowd of people push her towards the door, effectively making the decision for her.

She takes a seat and tries to pull her skirt down when she catches a guy leering at her. She wonders how her mom wears dresses like this all of the time with such confidence. Isn’t she constantly worried that she’s flashing somebody? Maybe she’ll just borrow a pair of sweatpants from Oliver when she gets to his place and beg him to stay in with her instead. Maybe this was too big of a step for her first night out, and they really should talk. She needs to apologize for being so distant the past few months.

She gets off of the bus at Oliver’s stop and walks towards his place. She walks up the steps to his door and rings the doorbell. When she doesn’t hear movement for several minutes, she presses the doorbell again, praying that he’s home. She didn’t just trek 30 minutes across the river for nothing. When he still doesn’t answer, she throws her hands up in defeat.

“Of course you’re not home,” she grumbles to herself. “You’re probably already several shots deep and with some leggy supermodel.”

She could call him… That is, if she had thought to buy a new phone yesterday in all of her shopping. She could walk to the wine shop down the street and ask Richard, the manager, to borrow their phone, only she doesn’t know Oliver’s cell number. She still has his old house phone memorized by heart from all of the times they talked well into the night during high school, but she’d never taken the time to memorize his cell number. It’s always just been programmed into her phone as her number two speed dial, second only to her mother.

She sits down on his doorstep and debates what she should do next. She doesn’t really want to go back home. Not when she’s worked up the courage and energy to actually go out. And now that she’s here at Oliver’s place, she realized just how deeply she’s missed talking to Oliver. When he started at Harvard her junior year after being kicked out of Brown, she’d spent nearly every weekend at his place. This place has always felt way more like home than her shitty dorm room ever has. She’s determined to find him.

She wonders if she started walking into the nightclubs in the area, if she would run into Oliver. Then again, she’s pretty sure the kind of clubs that he frequents are exclusive and would never let somebody like her in. New blonde hair and dress or not, she’s still a socially awkward nerd.

“Look, I don’t know who you are, but there are easier ways than stalking to get a pair of cuffs...” she hears a familiar voice say.

Felicity rolls her eyes and looks down to where Oliver’s other best friend is walking up the street.

“Hey Tommy,” she says.

“Shit,” Tommy says, doing a double take. “Smoak?”

Felicity blushes as she stands up and pulls her skirt down. “How are you?”

“When did… What the… Wow,” he stumbles over his words.

“Tommy Merlyn speechless. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that,” Felicity says, shuffling back and forth on her feet, trying to figure out if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

“Well it doesn’t happen often, so congratulations. You look amazing,” he says, stepping up to stand next to her on the stairs. “Are you waiting for Ollie?”

She nods, biting her lip, suddenly feeling awkward. It’s been months since she talked to him and in that time, he hadn’t reached out to her either. Had it been completely stupid of her to show up like this expecting things to go back to normal?

“I thought I might catch him before he headed out, but I guess not,” she says, going for nonchalant, but she’s pretty sure Tommy sees right through her. After all, she had literally been waiting on his doorstep.

“Yeah, he headed to Royale tonight with a bunch of the guys,” he says.

“Right,” she says, as if she’d known that. Which is stupid, because if she had known that, she wouldn’t be sitting on his doorstep like a pathetic loser.

“Has Ollie seen this?” Tommy asks, reaching out to pull on one of her curls.

She shakes her head. “It’s new.”

Tommy’s smile grows and he suddenly has that look in his face that he gets when he’s about to do something that will be epic but also highly illegal.

“Okay, give me a minute to cancel my plans and we’ll head over there together.”

“You don’t have to cancel your plans,” she says, weary of whatever he’s clearly planning. “I think I’m actually going to head back. I’m kind of tired.”

“It’s 9:30,” he says with a laugh and pats her shoulder. “I forgot how cute you are when you’re being a total buzzkill. That dress deserves to go out. We are going to find Ollie. The look on his face when he sees you will be totally worth cancelling on Crystal Harris.”

She opens her mouth to argue with him some more, but he puts a finger to her mouth and shakes his head.

“Nope, no more arguing,” he says. “You’ve been MIA for far too long to be allowed to argue with me.”

She smacks his hand away and crosses her arms, but doesn’t argue any further. She’s known Tommy long enough to know that she won’t win this argument. She doesn’t have the kind of energy it would take to argue with him and if she’s being honest with herself, she doesn’t want to. Not if it means seeing Oliver.

He makes a quick call and within a minute, he’s cancelled his date and is pulling her down the stairs and down the sidewalk.

“For the record, you didn’t have to do that,” Felicity says, pulling her hand out of his grip but continuing to walk at his side.

“Felicity,” he says, giving her a serious look. “Oliver and I talk.”

“Okay,” she says, unsure what he’s getting at.

“So I know that the two of you haven’t talked,” he says. “He hasn’t been at his best recently, so I wouldn’t be doing my friendly duties if I didn’t make sure to deliver him the one person that I know can make him feel better.”

Hearing that Oliver has been going through something and she’s been unavailable makes her feel guilty. Then again, she’s not sure how much help she would have been to him given the emotional state she’s been in recently.

“Was she pretty?” Felicity asks, deciding against pushing Tommy for more information on Oliver. She can ask him herself when she sees him.

“Who?”

“The girl you cancelled on just now.”

Tommy shrugs. “Yeah. She was pretty hot, but it’s cool.”

“Are you going to reschedule with her?”

“Maybe. Who knows,” he says, which sounds completely unlike him. “I’m kind of getting bored of all of it.”

“Of girls?” she asks as they cross the street and Royale comes into view. The line is around the block. There’s no way Felicity ever would have gotten in herself. Thankfully, she knows Tommy Merlyn has never had to wait in line a day in his life.

“Of the whole thing. Dating. Hooking up. It’s just kind of tiring.”

“Are you saying to want to settle down?” she asks.

“You tell anyone that, Smoak and I’ll have to kill you,” he says teasingly as he waves at the bouncer who lets them right in.

The second they step into the door, Felicity knows that she doesn’t belong here. The music is so loud she can’t hear what Tommy is saying to her. The girls are all scantily clad, making the dress she’s in look like a parka. And everyone is grinding on each other in a way that makes her blush.

She’s about to turn around and leave, but Tommy grabs onto her wrist and holds her in place. He leans down to whisper into her ear, “Relax. You’re with friends. Take your nose out of the books tonight and let yourself have fun.”

She nods, knowing that he’s right. This is what she wanted. A normal college experience. This is what college kids did. They went out and had fun with their friends. They drank. She’s sure once she gets some liquor in her she won’t feel so awkward.

“I could use a drink,” she says, turning her head closer to his so that he can hear her.

“Let’s head upstairs. I’m sure Oliver has a table,” he says.

He leads her through the crowd of people until they reach a set of stairs that has a bouncer at it blocking the entrance. As soon as he sees who Tommy is, he moves aside and lets them upstairs.

If she didn’t know firsthand how crippling the expectations are for people like Oliver and Tommy, she would envy how they seemingly walk through life and have everything handed to them. Every door they could ever want to walk through is opened for them. They don’t have to fight tooth and nail for everything they have.

But Felicity has heard enough about Oliver and Tommy’s parents to know that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

“Tommy!” Felicity hears Oliver shout as they reach the top of the stairs.

Oliver doesn’t seem to recognize her at first. Between the dark lighting, her hair, and her outfit, she gets it.

“I thought you were bringing your date out to dinner and then dessert at your place?” Oliver asks, pulling Tommy in for a friendly hug.

“Not my date,” Tommy says with a smirk before squeezing her hand one last time and stepping around Oliver to take a seat at the table.

“Hi, Oliver,” she says, suddenly feeling nervous, which is absurd. They’ve known each other since they were in elementary school. There’s no reason she should feel awkward. Still, his opinion has always mattered more to her than most.

“Felicity?” Oliver says, clearly confused.

She nods, trying to figure out what his reaction is. Does he like it? Does he think she looks like a little girl playing dress up?

He reaches out and pulls her into a tight hug, nuzzling his face into her hair. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Between his familiar voice in her ear and his warm arms around her body, it feels like coming home. He’s always been her protector. The boy who kept her safe from ghosts and protected her from bullies. He’s always been the encouraging voice in her ear, pushing her to do better. Making sure she felt loved and cared for.

It doesn’t make everything go away. A hug from Oliver doesn’t erase the fact that Cooper is gone forever and it’s all her fault. But it’s something. It’s a really important something. It’s healing.

“You’re blonde,” he says, tucking a curl behind her ear and cradling her cheek.

“Yeah,” she says, biting her lip. “Do you like it?”

“I like you no matter what color your hair is,” he says, causing her to roll her eyes. It’s lines like that which had her lovesick all through high school.

“But…”

“But the blonde looks good,” he says. “That dress is another story.”

“You don’t like it?” she asks, reaching down to pull at it again, scared that it’s somehow managed to come up.

“I don’t like that it’s making the guys stare at your ass,” he says, turning to glare at his friends until they finally look away.

“Down boy,” she says, putting her hand against his chest. “I don’t need you playing protector tonight. I’m not here for that.”

She has no interest in hooking up with anyone tonight. She has no interest in hooking up with anyone ever again. Cooper was supposed to be it for her, and now that he’s gone, she can’t imagine opening herself up like that again.

“And what are you here for then?” Oliver asks, a curious smirk on his face.

She’s about to answer him when they are interrupted by a leggy brunette that Felicity recognizes from one of the language classes she’d taken at Harvard last year.

“Ollie! Do a shot with me!” the girl in a skirt even shorter than Felicity’s pulls on Oliver’s arm and tries to get him to come back to the table.

Not only is she pretty, but if she goes to Harvard, she’s clearly smart as well. Just Oliver’s type. She wonders if that means Laurel is out of the picture or if he’s cheating on her again. She wishes the two of them would call it off for good. She likes Laurel and she loves Oliver, but the two of them are toxic together.

Oliver looks at her and it seems like he wants to say more, but doesn’t.

“Come on,” he says to her. “Have a seat. Order your favorite wine. Your drinks are on me tonight.”

“I figured I’d just drink whatever you guys are having,” she says, taking a seat at the table across from Oliver and the girl he’s with. Samatha? Felicity thinks that’s her name.

“Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?” Oliver asks as he pours a shot for them all.

She shrugs, but plays it off. She knows if she tells him that she’s planning on getting drunk as fast as she can, he’ll ask questions, and she’s not really feeling up to answering any of those questions right about now.

They cheer and she downs the shot, coughing as it burns on the way down. She’s never done shots before. It’s not nearly as fun as everyone makes it seem.

“What is that?” she asks.

“That, my friend, is tequilla,” Oliver says already pouring himself another. “It goes down easier the more you have.”

“Ollie, come dance with me,” Samantha says to him.

Oliver rolls his eyes, but allows himself to be pulled out of his chair. Felicity gets it. The girl’s outfit leaves little to the imagination. If she were a guy and had a girl like that hanging on him, she’d probably go with her, too.

“Guys,” Oliver announces to the table. “This one isn’t allowed to have an empty glass tonight,” he says, pointing at her. “Take care of her.”

“Don’t worry, Ollie,” Tommy says with a smirk. “I’ll make sure she’s well taken care of.

“Touch her Merlyn and you’ll lose a finger,” Oliver growls, causing Felicity to roll her eyes.

“It would be so worth it though,” Tommy says with a laugh.

“I’m literally sitting right here,” she says, but both boys ignore her. Oliver heads down the stairs and Tommy slides over into Oliver’s vacated seat.

“Alright, let’s get this party started,” Tommy says, pouring her another shot. “By my estimates, you’re going to need another two of these before you stop pulling at your dress self-consciously and allow yourself to enjoy the night. So drink up, Smoak.”

She remembers taking shots with Tommy.

She’s pretty sure there’s some dancing involved. Both with Tommy and with Oliver.

At one point they were walking down the street in search of tacos.

She thinks she may have kissed Oliver, but she really can’t be sure.

And there’s definitely crying at some point. She remembers crying in a bathroom to Oliver’s… whatever Samatha is to him.

That’s it. That’s all she can remember when she wakes up the next morning next to Oliver in his guest bedroom.

“I feel like I’m dying,” she grumbles as he rolls over onto his stomach, shaking the entire bed in the process and making her nauseous. “If you don’t stop that I will throw up on you.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Oliver says with a laugh, shaking the bed again.

“Stop,” she grumbles, pulling the blanket up over her face.

“Well I’ve got two different hangover options for you,” he says. “We can order Mike & Pattys or you can have some hair of the dog that bit you.”

“Ugh, the first. No question,” she groans. “I must have tequilla coming out of my pores I smell like a distillery.”

“That’s probably from all the body shots you did,” he says with a laugh.

“What?” she asks, sitting up in bed suddenly and instantly regretting it.

“Kidding,” he laughs.

“I hate you.”

“I’m about to buy you a breakfast sandwich, so I know you love me,” he says, rolling over to grab his pants from the floor. As he digs around in his pockets, Felicity has a horrible sinking feeling. While she’s still in her dress from the night before, Oliver is only in his boxers.

“Please tell me that we didn’t have sex last night,” she says.

“We didn’t have sex last night,” he says pulling out his phone and laying back in bed.  

“Then why aren’t you wearing any clothes?” she asks. “And why are you in my bed?”

“I like that you’re calling it your bed when it’s my house.”

“Has anyone but me ever stayed here?” she asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Occasionally,” he says. “Thea visited once.”

“So back to why you’re almost naked in my bed…”

She feels like they kissed yesterday, but she can’t be sure if it was real or not. Her brain is still pretty foggy.

“Because you begged me to cuddle with you and you’re like a damn furnace,” he says. “And I wasn’t about to sleep in my clothes. They’re disgusting.”

She has a vague recollection of Oliver putting her to bed last night and tucking her in. She remembers being really sad. Had she been crying?

She can picture herself reaching out to him as he went to leave. It wouldn’t surprise her if she’d asked him to stay. She hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep since Cooper got arrested. She’d gotten used to sharing a bed with him and the empty spot next to her at night just reminded her that he wasn’t ever coming back.

God. She must have been a mess last night. Which is totally embarrassing. She probably ruined his night.

“What happened to Samantha?” she asks.

With how much Samantha had continued to pull Oliver away from Felicity, she can’t imagine she would have been okay with Oliver cuddling with her last night. Then again, Felicity isn’t even sure if they are dating or if she’s just another thing Oliver’s going to have to apologize to Laurel about later.

“What?” he asks.

“Isn’t that the girl from last night?”

She’s pretty sure Samantha is her name.

“Yeah.”

Oliver’s lack of reaction is puzzling. She knows Oliver well enough to know that he had to have wanted to hook up with the girl last night. Shouldn’t he be more upset?

“You didn’t take her home?”

“I was a little focused on getting you home,” he says.

“Great, so I messed up your’s and Tommy’s nights.”

“It’s fine.”

“You didn’t want to get laid?” She looks at him curiously. “That’s a first.”

Oliver laughs. “I wouldn’t worry about me. I’m okay.”

She watches him another minute, looking for any sign that he’s lying to make her feel better, but when she doesn’t see any, she allows herself to relax and fall back into bed. “Okay.”

“I’m going to order us some food and take a shower. You good?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Once the world stops spinning I’ll attempt a shower as well.”

“All of your stuff is still in the guest bathroom,” he says. “I think you’ve still got some clothes in the closet here, too.”

“Thanks,” she says and watches as Oliver leaves the room.

She lays back in bed and her eyes fill with tears unexpectedly as she thinks of Cooper. He’s always her first thought when she wakes up and her last thought before going to sleep. This morning had been the first morning she woke up and didn’t immediately think of him. While it makes her feel incredibly guilty and selfish, it had been nice.

It’d been refreshing to wake up and not instantly feel like she didn’t deserve to be alive.

****

A few hours later, showered, fed, and feeling much better, Felicity lays on the couch with her head in Oliver’s lap. He’s watching college football on the TV while she watches old episodes of Buffy on his laptop. He’s running his hands through her hair in the most soothing way and she’s contemplating the merits of a nice long nap before she heads back to her place.

She doesn’t want to leave. She’s been putting it off all day. Oliver’s home is warm, welcoming, and safe. It doesn’t have memories of Cooper around every corner here to push her back underwater anytime she makes it to the surface.

“I have class tomorrow,” she says, mostly as a way to motivate herself to get up the energy to leave. She probably should be studying and trying to get caught up before her first class back.

Oliver says something but she doesn’t catch it.

“What?” she asks.

He reaches down and pulls the headphones off of her head.

“I said skip class and stay here.”

“As incredibly tempting as that offer is, I can’t skip class tomorrow. I’ve already missed too many classes this semester,” she says. “Besides, don’t you have class tomorrow?”

“No,” he says.

“I thought you had classes on Mondays?” she asks, searching her memory for his class schedule. She’s pretty sure he’s always had classes on Mondays.

“I, uh, don’t really have classes on any days anymore,” he says, scratching the back of his neck.

“What are you talking about?” she asks, sitting up to look at him properly.

“I got kicked out last week,” he says.

Her heart drops to her toes and she instantly feels like the walls are caving in.

“What?”

“I am no longer a Harvard student,” he says. “I guess excessive not showing up and failing grades mixed with getting caught with some drugs was enough for them to kick me out.”

She puts her head in her hands and tries not to panic. She only just got him back. Spending the day with Oliver here had been helping her feel human again. Why did he have to go and take that away from her? She needs him.

“Hey, hey,” he says softly, pulling her hands away from her face and wiping the tears that had already started to fall. “What’s going on?”

“You’re leaving,” she says. “Why does everyone leave?”

Oliver shakes his head. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says.

“Your dad isn’t going to pay for you to live here if you aren’t in school,” she says, trying to keep her voice calm and not hysterical like she’s starting to feel.

She’d been doing so good this weekend. She hadn’t had a panic attack in days.

“Breathe,” he says, putting his hands on either side of her face. “Breathe with me. In… Out… In… Out…”

She does her best to match his breathing, but her heart is racing a mile a minute.

“You are okay. It’s just a panic attack. You need to try your best to breathe normally.”

Felicity shakes her head.

“Felicity. In… Out… In… Out…”

The two of them sit there for several minutes breathing together until eventually her heart rate slows down and she doesn’t feel like she’s suffocating.

“How long has that been happening?” he asks her softly, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her in close.

“Since Cooper got arrested,” she says, her voice weak. Her entire body aches. She feels like she just ran a marathon then got hit by a bus.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should have checked in on you more. Why didn’t you call me?”

Felicity shrugs. “I don’t know.”

She takes a minute to think about it and he gives her space to do so.

“I think that telling you would have made it real, and I didn’t want it to be real.”

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I know how much you loved him.”

“I still wake up most mornings expecting him to be there,” she admits. “And when he’s not, it’s like I’m losing him all over again.”

“I know it sucks right now, but it will get easier,” he says.

“What if it doesn’t?” she says, voicing her real fear. “What if this hole in my heart lasts forever and I never get over it? What if I never find someone else?”

“You will,” he says.

“You don’t know that,” she says. “Cooper was special. He understood me. He loved me. I’m not going to find anyone that cares about me again.”

“You will,” he says again. “I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but you will.”

As much as the idea of dying alone terrifies her, the thought of ever having to go through the pain of losing somebody again scares her more.

“Maybe I’m not as ready to rejoin the world as I thought.”

“You can always apply for a medical leave this semester,” he says.

She starts to protest but he holds up his hand to quiet her.

“I know you hold yourself to an insanely high standard, but you need to take care of yourself. There’s nothing wrong with taking some time to process everything that happened and grieve. Give yourself some space. You can return when you’re ready.”

Felicity lets his words sink in. While her initial reaction is no, she knows that he has a point. She’s not okay. Cooper’s death hit her incredibly hard and if her panic attack just now showed her anything, she may be more damaged than a simple makeover can solve.

“What would I even do with time off?” she asks.

“My dad is planning on taking the Gambit out for a few weeks. We could hijack his trip,” he says. “Some time on the open sea could help you clear your head.”

“You want to go on a trip with your dad?” she asks, surprised.

Oliver and his dad don’t have an awful relationship. They get along well enough. However, Oliver’s spent the last several years avoiding spending time with his parents as often as he can because it inevitably always leads to pressure to settle down and do something with his life. The Queens want Oliver to take over the company one day, and while Oliver doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life, he knows it’s not run Queen Consolidated.

“It’s a thought,” he says.

“Yeah.”

She doesn’t say anything else. As far as ideas go, it’s not the craziest thing he’s ever suggested, but she’s also not sure if she wants to spend weeks on a boat. That seems like way too much time alone with her crushing thoughts.

But there is one thing Oliver suggested that does hold merit.

She should apply for a medical leave of absence. She’s not ready to return to class and a medical leave of absence would be better than failing every one of her classes.

“Will you come with me tomorrow to talk to student services about a leave?” she asks him.

He looks a little surprised. She’s sure that he thought she would ignore his advice and insist on going to class tomorrow.

“Yeah. Whatever you need. You know that.”

“Thanks,” she says and curls back into his side and rests her head on his shoulder. Her panic attack really took it out of her and a nap is well overdue.

****

Felicity wakes up to the sound of Oliver calling her name. She’s struggling to get her breathing under control as she slowly realizes that it was only a nightmare. She’s not in prison watching Cooper kill himself.

“It’s okay,” Oliver whispers into her hair as he rocks her back and forth. She tries to focus on the steady rise and fall of his chest and match her breathing to his own. She’s alright. She’s safe. She’s with Oliver.

Her nightmares haven’t been getting any better since moving in with Oliver last week, but she’s hoping once she starts therapy tomorrow, that will change. Or, at the very least, they’ll prescribe her something strong enough to knock her out so that she won’t dream about Cooper.

Once her breathing calms down, she lays back in bed and allows Oliver to hold her from behind. Ever since that first night where she couldn’t fall back asleep after a nightmare without Oliver holding her, he stopped waiting for her to ask him to stay.

“I killed him,” she whispers, staring at the wall ahead. She finds it easier to confess these things when she doesn’t have to look at him.

“You did not kill him, Felicity,” he says kindly, just like he’s told her numerous times before.

“He took the fall for me,” she says.

“It was his idea to wipe out those loans. You tried to stop him,” he says.

“It was my virus.” She shakes her head. “He should have told them I wrote it.”

“Then both of you would be in prison and he probably still would have made the same decision,” Oliver says.

“He could have cut a deal.”

“He loved you,” he says. “He wanted to protect you from his own mistake.”

“If he loved me, why did he leave me?”

It’s the question that has been tearing at her from the moment she got the phone call saying Cooper was dead. Why did he have to leave? Why did he give up? Wasn’t she enough to fight for?

“I don’t know.”

“Why does everyone always leave?” she asks.

“You’ve still got me,” he says, placing a kiss to her forehead. “Always. Now try and get some sleep.”

****

Felicity is sitting at the kitchen island, writing in her journal when she hears Oliver’s phone ringing. She does her best to ignore it, not wanting to snoop, and continues to write. Her therapist suggested she start journaling everyday to see if it helped her work through some of her feelings. So far she’s yet to see the benefit to it, but she’s willing to do anything to stop having panic attacks and be capable of going back to school in the spring.

She can hear Oliver arguing with somebody and realizes it’s probably Laurel on the other end. She closes her journal, grabs some snacks and a bottled water, and heads upstairs to her room. She doesn’t want to hear what sounds like is shaping up to be an epic fight. Oliver’s arguments with Laurel are never short.

She makes it to her room and puts a movie in the DVD player before settling in with her snacks for the night. She figures Oliver will come and get her once he’s off the phone and ready to vent.

About halfway through the first Lord of the Rings, Oliver crawls into her bed and steals her trail mix and begins picking out all of the M&Ms.

“If you eat all of those, I’m going to be mad,” she says.

“I’ve earned it,” he says.

“So you guys broke up again?” she asks, unsurprised.

“No,” he says. “I managed to talk her down, but I had to promise her that I would come home next week…”

She can tell by the way he says the last line, that he’s worried about her reaction to the news that he’s leaving. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, focusing on being aware of her body like her therapist has been teaching her.

“So you’re leaving?” she says, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Only for a few days. A week at most,” he says, rolling over onto his stomach to look at her properly.

She opens her eyes at that. A week doesn’t sound so bad. She can handle a week.

“Are you going to be okay here?” he asks. “I can tell her no.”

She’s tempted to ask him to stay. For one, she doesn’t think that he should still be with Laurel. That relationship isn’t good for either of them and their argument tonight proves that. But she also knows that she can’t keep expecting him to drop everything for her. He’s already done so much for her in the last few weeks.

“No, you should go if you want to go,” she says. “If Laurel is who you want to be with, then you should do whatever you need to do to make that work.”

Oliver stares at her for a really long time studying her. He looks like he wants to say something to her, but is holding back. She notices his eyes continuing to drop to her lips, but doesn’t know what to make of that.

“What?” she asks, once the silence grows uncomfortable enough.

“Nothing,” he mumbles. “You’re right. I should make things work with Laurel.”

“Yeah,” she says half heartedly and turns back to the movie.

They both watch together, with Oliver interrupting every few minutes with questions on who different characters were and what was happening. When the movie finishes and the trail mix is all gone, she turns to him.

“So what did you two argue about this time?” she asks.

“Same thing we always argue about,” he says.

And there it is again. That weird look on his face that she doesn’t understand.

“I’m pretty tired, I think I’m just going to head to bed,” he says, rolling out of bed. “You gonna be okay?”

She nods, confused. It’s only 9pm and Oliver never goes to sleep earlier than midnight.

“I’ll probably catch a plane home tomorrow, but we can do breakfast before I leave,” he offers.

“Sounds good,” she says with a smile and watches as he leaves, trying to figure out what exactly is going on with Oliver.

****

Felicity is eating pizza with Tommy, who she’s pretty sure only stopped by at Oliver’s request, when the phone rings.

“It’s Oliver,” she says to Tommy, who tells her to take it.

“Hey! What’s up?” she answers the phone.

“Hey, so I have a plan,” he says, there’s a weird tone to his voice. He sounds frantic. “I’m going to get you a flight out to Starling tonight and the two of us are going to go out on the Gambit with my dad for a few weeks.”

“What?” she asks. “No.”

She’s fairly used to Oliver’s spontaneous adventures by now, but he doesn’t usually sound quite so desperate when he offers to take her around the world.

“Come on,” he says. “You don’t have school. It’ll be fun.”

“I can’t just pick up and leave,” she says. “I have therapy.”

“It’ll be waiting for you when we get back.”

Tommy’s looking at her expectantly. She shakes her head and stands up from the table, moving into the living room in order to have some privacy.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

“Laurel asked me to move in with her,” he says. “And I said yes.”

Felicity feels her heart drop to her feet at the news.

“Oh,” is all she can make herself say.

“She’s already talking about condos,” Oliver says, and he sounds like a caged animal. She wishes she could see his face. It would be so much easier to calm him down if she were there with him.

“Isn’t that a little fast?” she asks, causing Oliver to laugh.

“Apparently of all of our friends, we’ve been together the longest,” he says, clearly just repeating whatever argument Laurel had made for him. “I don’t know. I guess it makes sense, right? There’s not any reason for me to say no?”

Felicity can think of about a hundred reasons to say no, but she doesn’t think it’s her place to say anything bad about Laurel. The few times she’s mentioned how toxic they are, Oliver hadn’t taken it well.

“It’s you’re decision,” she says.

“Felicity,” he whispers, like he’s pleading with her to understand something.

“What?”

“I need you to tell me if there is any reason why I should say no to her,” he says.

Something clicks in her mind, and she’s pretty sure that she knows what Oliver is asking her, but it doesn’t make sense. They are best friends. They’ve never been more. It’s always been Laurel and Oliver. And even if he did feel that way about her, she’s still picking up the pieces of her heart from Cooper. She’s not sure if she’ll ever feel ready to be in a relationship again.

“What are you asking?” she asks quietly, needing to be sure that she’s not reading into this wrong.

“I’m asking you to come on the Gambit with me,” he says, his voice shaky and clearly nervous. “I know that moving in with Laurel is what I’m expected to do, but Felicity... please.”

Felicity can’t believe this is happening. It’s everything that she’s dreamed about for years… Except she can’t. This isn’t right. Her boyfriend just died, she’s not ready to jump into anything else right now, let alone a relationship with her best friend and rock. There’s no way that she’s ready for that and it would only lead to heartbreak right now. She needs time.

“I can’t go on the Gambit with you,” she says with tears in her eyes. “I need to stay in therapy. I’m not ready.”

“Forget I said anything,” he says, and hangs up the phone before she can say another word.

Felicity tries to call him back, but he won’t pick up. He’s hurt and angry, and it breaks her heart, but she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do about it. She’d waited years for Oliver to show even the slightest hint that he wanted more with her. Years. She’s been in love with him since middle school, but never fathomed he would ever look at her with anything but friendship.

It wasn’t until she met Cooper that she was finally ready to give up on any hope of a future with Oliver and move on. And she’d been happy she had. Cooper had been wonderful. So wonderful, that she was able to put her feelings for Oliver to rest completely.

And now he puts this on her? It’s not fair. She’s still so broken. He knows how broken she is. He’s the one that pulls her out of her nightmares most nights. He’s held her numerous times as she cried.

Why did he have to go and do this now?

“Everything okay?” Tommy asks.

Felicity looks up at him, unsure how to answer that question.

No. Everything's not okay.

She’s not sure if anything will be okay again.

What if, in telling Oliver no, she just lost him forever?

****

Felicity wakes up the next morning to a voicemail on her phone from Oliver.

She breathes a sigh of relief. If he’d called her last night, he must not be as mad at her as she thought. Maybe they can find a way to salvage this.

“Hey Felicity. Fe-lic-it-y,” he starts out and she can tell he’s drunk. She hopes he’s not about to start drunkenly raging at her like he used to do with Laurel.

“God… Even your name is beautiful. So beautiful. Felicity.”

At this he sighs deeply. “You know I love you, right?”

“No, I didn’t,” she whispers as she listens to his message. She had no idea. How could she have possibly known that? He never said anything.

“I know. I know. It’s selfish. ‘Specially now. E-spec-ial-ly. That’s a hard word. I’m sure you know that word. You’re so smart… My Felicity.”

“God, how drunk are you?” she mumbles. She’s seen Oliver consume an ungodly amount of liquor and still manage to be a smooth talker, so she can’t imagine how much he had to have drank in order to be this fargone.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes… I’m such a fuck up. You deser… deserve somebody else. But I promise you, Felicity. My Felicity. I would never leave you like Cooper did… Or your father. He was a jackass. I hope you don’t think I’m a jackass… Felicity. Such a pretty name.”

He pauses again and she wipes the tears from her cheek. God, why is everything in her life so fucked up? Where was this a few years ago? Why didn’t he tell her sooner? Back when she was still happy and whole. She can’t be with him now. She can’t possibly give him what he needs. She’s too broken. She’s going to be too broken for a long time.

“Since elementary school… I’ve been here for you… It’s always been you… Since first grade. Doesn’t that count for something? It should count for something…”

It sounds like he drops the phone as he lets out a string of curse words. The message cuts out with an automated voice informing her that the message had been left at 2:34am. She saves the message and moves onto the next one.

“I shouldn’t have asked you to come with me on the Gambit. I get that now. You don’t love me like I do you,” he says.

“You are so dumb,” she whispers.

Of course she loved him. If she’s being honest with herself, a part of her still loves him. That’s probably why she distanced herself from him when she was dating Cooper, because she needed the time and space to let go of ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ if she wanted her relationship with Cooper to work.

“But I need you to know… You’re my light. The one that guides me home. Like the north star. You’re my north star. My life doesn’t work without you in it,” he says quietly, sounding a bit more sober than he had before. He must have waited to call her back a few more hours.

“I’m going to go on that trip with my dad. I think I need the space to clear my head. But after that… I hope we can get past this. I hope you don’t hate me forever. Because even if you never want to be with me, I still need my best friend.”

The call cuts out and Felicity immediately calls him back, but his cell is turned off. When she calls his house, Raisa informs her that Oliver has already left for his trip and won’t be back for another three weeks.

She types out a text message, hoping he’ll get it whenever he docks somewhere, and sends it before she can start to second guess herself.

I do love you. I always have. You’re my north star, too. I just need time.

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