"My name is Felicity Smoak… and I have done horrible things."

Chapter 2: The Dead Don't Get to Want

Gwen

She closed her eyes the moment the blade came sinking down, already knowing what would happen. Gwen had been afraid that this would be the outcome, because if Felicity Smoak was anything, she was full of surprises. Gwen had been able to see it clear as day. The blonde IT girl conquering her shadow, the light finally coming back in full to her eyes as she laid her troubled past to rest. All it took was acceptance. It was the kind of person Felicity was, the kind of person that would refuse to let the past get the better of her. She'd want to be stronger of course, and Gwen and the Daughters could help with that. Felicity would never have to fear for her physical safety again, not in the sense that she'd grown to fear for it.

But this was different. She hadn't seen this coming. The Chinese ring dagger they'd given her was standard use for the Daughters, it's dual ability for melee and long distance giving it - and them - a great advantage. For Felicity it had been given as a choice. Arden and Phoebe had both given her strange looks as she packed the dagger away in Felicity's backpack.

"It's her choice to make," she said, answering the unspoken question. "We all got the choice."

"How do you know she'll make the right one?" Arden asked, her dark eyes sparkling from underneath her bangs. As far as beauty went, Arden was not particularly outstanding. Gwen often felt bad about thinking like that, but Arden's face was undoubtedly… forgettable. It's what made her such a great spy, a master of infiltration. No one ever looked at her, often being forgotten or overlooked as if she were no more than another piece of furniture in the room. Only her eyes carried any beauty. Black as cole and yet deeper than eyes that dark had any right to be.

"I don't." She picked up the other knife, the one that was useful for everything but what Felicity might need it for in the end, and placed it inside the bag as well. "But if I've learned anything, its that the right choice is different for every person. What we think is the wrong choice might be the right one."

The truth of the matter was that Gwen still didn't know if Felicity had made the right choice or not. Only time and actions would reveal that. The shadows melted away, the intense feeling of unwelcome disappearing as the forrest was satisfied. The darkness inside Felicity had been dealt with. It hadn't been destroyed, but that wasn't what the forrest wanted. It simply wanted it to be acknowledged, that some action be taken.

Gwen gripped the dagger in her hand tightly, stepping around the fossilized tree. The fire was reduced to embers now, their soft glow only just illuminating the side of Felicity's face. Many strands of hair had escaped the ponytail the blonde had put her hair in, falling around her face in small curls.

Felicity's lips moved quickly, forming words too quietly for Gwen to hear.

"Felicity?" Her voice shook as she called out to the other woman. She hesitated a second as she heard the fear in her own voice.

Felicity

A soft hiss made its way through the air, the sound of someone sucking in air through their teeth. Felicity tensed at the sound, knowing without having to look what would be there. The warmth from the fire disappeared, the bright flame becoming smaller. She scrambled to her feet, her hand flying to the blade strapped to her waist as she backed up. The specter stood at the entrance to the cave, its posture hunched forward as it faced down. As Felicity drew the blade from its pouch the figure tensed.

She expected it this time, and perhaps that was why she was able to react better. The shadow ghosted through the space between them, blinking in and out of existence with each movement forward. In a blur of movement it materialized in front of Felicity, it's dark hair flying as it threw a punch. Chunks of rock and mineral showered Felicity as she ducked out of the way, the fist aimed at her head missing by a breath and breaking into the fossilized tree behind her. The hand the gripped the dagger came lashing out, but Felicity had been right earlier when she had doubted her ability to use the knife properly. Her lack of training and precision made her aim wild and ineffective, the blade barely slicing through the arm covered in shadow. The cut couldn't have been more than a graze, but the anger that radiated from the shadow was overwhelming.

The grip on her wrist threatened to nearly break the bones, her arm cried in protest as the shadow-woman gripped her and twister her arm around. The knife fell to the floor as Felicity lost her hold on it, crying out in pain. A sickening pop reached her ears at the same moment her shouldered burned sharply. Felicity kicked wildly, the backs of her feet coming into contact with the legs of her assailant. She might as well have kicked a wall for all the good it did. The shadow neither flinched in pain nor relaxed its grip, it's other hand flying to Felicity's throat. Her eyes watered, the fingers of her one useful hand clawing at the one that held her throat.

Shadows flickered on the edge of her vision, her mind struggling to form coherent thoughts as her lungs burned with the need for air. She looked down frantically, still scratching at the hand that held her and kicking wildly.

It was as if the shadows that bordered on her vision were the shadows that had shrouded the woman intent on killing her, abandoning the menacing figure and instead closing in on Felicity herself. Or maybe it was the fact that she was so close to death now, the sensation all too familiar and having occurred far too frequently in such a short expanse of time, that she was finally able to see her assailant.

Her own face stared back at her, battered and bruised, a split lip and several cuts along the right cheek. The eyes continued to glow, neither iris nor pupil visible in the bright spots of light, and their affect on the sneering face was a startlingly sinister one. Felicity's foot kicked out, catching her somewhere on her body. It was like kicking through a container of cold water. The mass before her gave way, the hand around her throat becoming as intangible as the ghost it should have been.

There were moments in Felicity's life when everything happened just too fast, when even her quick brain couldn't keep up with the whirlwind of events.

Finding out Oliver was the Arrow. Free falling from the window of the executive offices at Queen Consolidated, Oliver's arms closing around her protectively as the entirety of Starling City glittered below her before suddenly they were crashing through another window and back into the safety of the building. Being attacked in that alleyway, her body aching and bleeding as her child died inside her. All to much for her to really process, everything requiring time and deep breaths and counting down moments after they had already happened when it was someone safe for her to think about it. Fear was often the prominent emotion she felt in those instances, fear and pain, loud and demanding to be felt.

Felicity Smoak never felt it again, not after that night. The overbearing sense of fear that was too much for even her to handle, so much so that her brain shut down. Nothing would ever be too much for her again.

But there was still that last time. Everything happening so fast, the world flying and spinning around her in a blast of low lights and barely there colors and fossilized trees. The cool sting of the dagger's handle as her fingers wrapped around it tightly, the warmth of blood on her face as she swung the blade out, her hair flying wildly around her face even as the edge of the knife sunk into skin that moments ago hand't been real.

She wasn't sure where the blood came from, or even why the flesh that tore easily was as real as it was, but she didn't question it. That was the first time it happened. A box formed in the back of her head, small and metallic and rusting but with small bits of paint still clinging to it that suggested it had once been green. Everything was taken and shoved into that box. Pain, fear, hesitation, weakness. Anything and everything because Felicity Smoak couldn't let any of it get to her. The box took everything she shoved in there and then some, closing so tightly she was positive that it would never open again.

Again and again, she brought the knife down. It wasn't in any particular order or with any real aim for that matter. It sank into flesh and through muscle and bone with a sickening but somehow satisfying crunch.

She was no fool. She knew that whatever this was, it had been some sort of test. Whether she passed or not didn't really matter to her anymore, she'd find another way if Gwen and the Daughters of Wisdom wouldn't offer her theirs anymore. But what happened had happened. The mutilated body in front of her with its very real blood was still warm and oozing over everything, and she thought that maybe, just maybe, she'd killed the weak part of herself as well.

Gwen

"Felicity?" Her voice shook, the cold trickle of fear making its way down her spine. It'd been too long since Gwen had last felt fear, but what she felt now was not out of concern for her safety, rather for the safety and well being of Felicity.

It was true that no one knew what was the proper path to take when it came to these things. For some sisters it was always better for them to slay their demons. For some, acceptance wasn't enough, some demons were just too big.

And then there were those that made the wrong choice. The ones that needed acceptance but instead took the knife and used it for what it had been made. Gwen had no doubt that the blood on Felicity's face was as warm and real as the blood of someone truly alive.

It was too early to tell, and Gwen found herself fiercely hoping that Felicity had indeed made the right choice. While the Daughters had requested that Felicity be recruited, it had been Gwen that had carried out the orders. When Felicity had found Gwen, weak and pale and obviously in no condition to be on her feet, Gwen could have turned her away.

Maybe she should have.

The blade fell from Felicity's hand and clattered noisily against the fossilized root of a tree.

Wrong or not, she was Gwen's responsibility now.

A/N: This chapter came out a lot shorter than I expected it to, but it felt right to end it here. Thank you to everyone who reviewed, for those who reviewed on the other post before I deleted it and just decided to post Life and Times here. I will be changing the title completely once chapter three goes up.

That being said I would like to hear from you guys. I've noticed that I haven't really been getting all that many reviews anymore, and I'm wondering if it's because of a lack of interest in this story. Please leave reviews, I live off them as surely as I live off other fanfics and Arrow and tumblr. And more recently the 100, which I just started watching yesterday and am already halfway through season one. Oh dear... what have I been doing with my life?