A/N: Here it is! An Oliver-centric POV type thing of him finding out the horrible no good very bad news. If you haven't read For Blue Skies, I'd suggest doing that first, but if you like to be confused, you can go ahead and read this alone. I'm not the boss of you. Reminder: Dosimeters record radiation activity.
Disclaimer: I do not own Arrow or anything of the sort.
OCCURS: MID CHAPTER 9, RADIOACTIVE (For Blue Skies)
"Guys, I have something really important to tell you."
"This oughtta be good," Dig muttered next to him, sharing a small smile.
Roy was running down the stairs, choosing to leap over the railing before he got to the end, landing in front of Oliver and Dig with practiced grace.
"If you got my sister pregnant, I will give you a five second head start."
"What? No, this doesn't have anything to do with her. This has to do with Felicity."
Suddenly Oliver was all ears - he hadn't really thought he would be rushing to tell him something about Thea anyways - but the idea that something was wrong with Felicity made his heart speed up just a fraction.
"What's wrong with Felicity?" His voice was deadly serious.
"I just saw her at the hospital-" Oliver went to grab his coat, but Roy's hand on his chest stopped him. "No, dude, she's fine. Perfectly healthy. Kind of."
"Explain." Dig ordered.
"She said that she fell outside of QC and was just there as a precaution. Seriously, she looked completely healthy and was waiting to be released." Oliver rolled his eyes at the kid. That sounded just like Felicity, and while he wished she had gotten him, it didn't seem to be as dire as Roy was making it out be. "No, that's not the weird part! The weird part is this."
He held out a small card, about the size of a credit card but a few millimeters thicker. Oliver flipped it over in his hand before handing it back to Roy.
"What is that?"
"Well, I took it out of the case to make sure it was working, but it's a personal dosimeter! And it is completely black!"
"What are you doing with a personal dosimeter?"
"I had to get one of my own, ever since you wouldn't let me borrow one from the lair."
"You mean ever since you broke two of mine in the lair," Oliver pointed out. He made to turn away and get back to his arrows when Roy's voice returned, sounding close to frantic.
"You're not listening! Black is bad. Black means radioactive activity. Notable radioactive activity."
"So?" Oliver knew there was background radiation happening at all times, so he wasn't too concerned. Not to mention he wouldn't put it past Roy to put the thing in a microwave just to see what happened.
"It turned black after I hugged Felicity! Like, seriously, right after I hugged her."
Oliver turned around slowly. "You're trying to tell me that you think Felicity is radioactive?"
He wanted to smile but the scared look on Roy's face held him back. The kid was actually concerned for her, which tamped down his urge to correct him.
"Yes! There's something going on with her, definitely. First, she was acting all crazy last week, and now she's setting off my badge thing? You can't tell me you think that's a coincidence. Not to mention that she really didn't want me to tell you that she was at the hospital."
Oliver didn't believe in coincidences, but he also didn't believe in radioactive women just casually wandering around Starling City.
"Where did you get that thing, kid?" Dig asked, still looking nonplussed by Felicity's desk. "Walmart? How reliable is it, anyways?"
"I'm telling you, this thing doesn't lie!" Oliver had to swallow back his instinct to protect his personal space when Roy crowded him. He was no longer impressed with the kid's ability to care about Felicity and was getting annoyed with the challenging tone in his voice.
"It's broken then."
"It's not broken! It works perfectly fine. Or at least, it did. It's a one-time use sort of thing, so I'll have to get another one." Dig huffed out at that; his Walmart suspicions were all but confirmed.
"What's going on?" Felicity stood a few steps from the bottom, taking in the situation around her. Oliver felt his body relax minutely. He had heard the door open a few moments ago and assumed Felicity was just trying to take her time to make sure she wasn't walking into World War 3, but he was still glad to see her. Roy's paranoia was wearing thin on him.
"Felicity," he greeted, before glaring at Roy. "See, it would've gone off," he told him, referring to the dosimeter that he had placed at the entrance to the lair at the top of the stairs. "Assuming you didn't break that one, too."
"Not if she didn't get close enough to it, man."
He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, trying to center himself. Roy was a good kid, he reminded himself. He cared about Felicity. And the radiation levels of Starling City, for some ridiculous reason. He was not trying to be this obnoxious.
"What are you two talking about?" Felicity took the remaining steps down the stairs. When Oliver noticed Roy stepping back as she approached, his frustration got the best of him.
"Roy has lost his mind, apparently."
He listened to Roy explain the badge dosimeter to Felicity, who looked sufficiently put out when she found out it didn't have a microchip, and therefore unable to be hacked. It was one of her more adorable traits. He paced away towards Dig, hoping to see the same skepticism mirrored on his face, but he only had eyes for Felicity.
"Felicity, you don't look surprised by this."
That got Oliver's attention. Dig was right. There was none of the trademark confusion in her eyes that he had grown accustomed to seeing when someone was talking about anything that she didn't have direct experience with. Instead, there was just a little bit of fear. Could Roy have been right?
"Felicity, if you were exposed to high levels of radiation, we need to know!"
She stammered out a few replies, but the look of fear in her eyes didn't lessen. She was hiding something from him.
He dragged out her name, urging her to respond.
"Oh, boy."
His stomach dropped.
He didn't know what was going on, but he couldn't handle that look in her eyes any longer. She was so damn scared. He closed the distance between them, hands on her shoulders just like he knew she liked. She always sagged underneath his hands, as if they alone had the ability to make her forget about everything bad in her life. It was moments like that that made him feel like he was a better man. He might not be able to be the best son, or the best brother, or the best vigilante, but he could do this. He could help her. Which was why he knew it wasn't going to be good when she tightened up underneath his hands. The fear in her eyes grew, and he had to swallow down something acidic that had climbed up his throat.
"Felicity, what is going on?"
She didn't respond. He couldn't even make sense of whatever Roy was saying, but the more he spoke, the more that gnawing feeling in his stomach grew even more intense. He was barely aware of yelling at the kid, but he was acutely aware of Felicity jumping at the tone in his voice, squeezing her hands together. Then she started to talk, and his mind started to spin.
He forced himself to take a few steps back, to separate himself from her, and to separate his mind from his emotions. She was going to tell him something, and there was no doubt in his mind that he wasn't going to like it.
He watched her fumble for words, and for the first time he didn't find her inability to communicate eloquently endearing. He was actually frustrated with her lack of command of the English language. He wanted to tell her to just spit the damn words out, to tell him what was wrong and have him overreact to it so that they could all just move on with their lives.
"You're sick."
Dig. Diggle. His bodyguard. He tried to get him to meet his eyes, but he remained focused on Felicity. How did Diggle get that from...from anything? What was he talking about? Was it some kind of joke? When he heard him cut off Felicity's - her what? Her rebuttal? Her lies? He realized that Dig had to be right. He had never heard him take that tone with Felicity, not ever. And he had never once accused her of treating anyone like an idiot, least of all him.
"Is he right? Are you sick?"
He had to ask the questions, but he already knew the answer. Knew it the second the accusation came out of Diggle's mouth. He had thought he had been prepared, but when she confirmed - he hadn't been prepared for that at all. He tried to look down, but the floor was swimming, and he was forced to keep his eyes locked on Felicity's.
"Sick with what? Sick with what, Felicity? Are you still sick from last month? What the hell is going on?" His heart was racing, beating wildly against his ribs like a caged animal desperate to get free. He knew that if he were to look down, his hands would be trembling too. He hadn't felt this way in a long, long time. This complete lack of control. This unchecked adrenaline coursing through him.
And then she whispered it.
He almost laughed it was so absurd. Cancer. Felicity couldn't have cancer. She was Felicity. She was perfectly healthy. She was perfect. She was. She wasn't sick. And then she tried to - she tried to elaborate on this cruel joke. Lymphoma? He didn't even know what that was, but it sounded bad. It sounded impossible. It was impossible. Felicity wasn't sick.
But a tiny voice in his head argued that maybe she was. Maybe this explained a lot in the last few months. Months. He looked at the woman in front of him, who looked so tired and small suddenly, so unsure of herself, which was not the Felicity Smoak he knew at all. He needed to know how long she had known this. How long had she been keeping this from him.
He didn't know what he expected, but it was not for her pink lips to part ever so slightly, and for her to just breathe out the response that would tear him apart: a month.
He wasn't aware of anything except the thrumming of blood in his veins and a dull throb in his wrist when he looked over and saw all of her monitors on the floor. He couldn't even find it in himself to feel bad. If anything, it felt good. She deserved to know what it felt like when something you have no control over just gets ruined.
The pieces were falling into place faster than he could move his mouth, but he knew that he hit the nail on the head when he brought up Lance. Detective Lance. That son of a bitch had known this entire time and didn't even bother to warn Oliver, as himself or as the Arrow.
He had seen them entering the hospital a few weeks ago. He had seen them. But he knew that Lance had been suffering from some heart problems for years now. He had just assumed...assumed that Felicity was there to support him, not the other way around. He had trusted her and she had not only lied, but brought other people into the lies as well. Her mother. Detective Lance. Whoever else she deemed fit enough to be told, aside from him.
He was gone before he knew what was happening.
The Ducati ripped through the streets, expertly weaving through cars, pedestrians, cyclists. He almost wanted one of them to try and stop him, to accuse him of being reckless and wild. He wasn't the one that was being reckless this time, though, that was solely Felicity's role apparently. He hadn't realized where he was going until he got there, but he figured it was a good a place as any.
He tore off his helmet and left it next to the bike, keys hanging from the ignition, daring someone to steal it. Please. Giving him something to fight would've been the best gift the universe could give to him at that point.
He stalked into the building on a mission he hadn't even realized he had. Finally, he reached his destination.
"Queen, what the hell are you-" Detective Lance was in the middle of the bullpen, watching Oliver grow closer until he saw the myriad of emotions in his eyes. "Oh."
And he knew, because apparently Detective Quentin Lance knew fucking everything that happened in this city. He saw something in Oliver that told him that Felicity had come clean about everything, and as grateful the detective was that she now had support from more than just him, it became clear that Oliver was not ready for that role yet.
"You knew?" His voice was loud, accusing. Oliver didn't even give a damn about the fact that they were still standing in the middle of the precinct with the other officers not even trying to hide that they were staring. "You knew and you didn't think to tell me? The hell were you thinking?"
Lance put a hand on Oliver's shoulder trying to guide him out of the busy bullpen, but Oliver quickly shook it off. He was lucky he hadn't done more, like broken his wrist, but even he knew that he couldn't get away with that in a room filled with law enforcement.
"I have no problem doing this with you, but may I remind you that not everyone in this room is a cop, and not all of them have any problems with selling you out to the highest bidder?" Quentin muttered between clenched teeth. Oliver acknowledged this and let him lead him away, but still flinched harshly when he tried to touch his shoulder again. He found himself in interrogation room 2; ironically, this was the room that Felicity had been in when Lance had first interrogated her.
Lance closed the door after them, and leaned against it, watching Oliver pace.
"She told you?" Well, that stopped the pacing, but only served to rile Oliver up more.
"No. She didn't tell me. We had to guess and then drag it out of her!"
Lance nodded. That sounded like Felicity.
"How could you not tell me? I know you don't like me much, Detective, but you seem to care enough for Felicity, so how could you not tell me?"
"Wasn't mine to tell."
Oliver had never wanted to punch the man more than he did in that moment.
"The hell it wasn't! You care about someone, you protect them. You help them."
Lance couldn't help the snort that came from his mouth. "That's pretty rich, coming from you."
"Is that what this is?!" He exploded. "Are you punishing me? I realize that you hate me, Lance, trust me, I am well aware, but this is not how you go about it!"
He just shook his head at the kid in front of him, looking more like a scared boy than a Fortune 500 CEO.
"You want to yell at me? Fine. Go ahead. Yell. Scream. Accuse me of punishing you. But you need to take a step back and ask yourself if you're really mad at me, or are you mad at Felicity - or are you mad at yourself, for not noticing earlier?"
The fight didn't go out of Oliver, but the words he was ready to spew at the detective died on his lips. He was mad at all of those things. He was furious that Lance didn't think to tell him, even though he knew he was just protecting Felicity's privacy. He was more than mad at Felicity for not telling him, but on top of that was the hurt and betrayal at the lies she fed him. She didn't lie to him, not ever. She called him out when he was being an idiot or an asshole or a guy whose moral code needed some major revisions. She didn't lie to his face. That wasn't who she was.
And yeah, he was man enough to admit that he was frustrated at himself for not putting all the pieces together earlier, but all that frustration served to do was make him more angry at Felicity. He didn't think there were pieces to put together because he never even considered in a million years that she would or could hide something like this from him.
"She is scared out of her mind, Oliver." Lance pushed himself off the door. "You think she has any idea what's going on? You think she wanted to lie to you? She has no idea what she's doing!"
"She told you. She told you and she didn't tell me." Of everything running through his mind, that was the one absolute he knew for sure. The one thing that he held on to, that kept his anger flowing through his veins when his mind and heart wanted nothing more than to go find Felicity and gather her up and never let her go until he healed this stupid disease with his own power of will.
"You think she told me? Why the hell would she do that?" He paused, actually expecting an answer that he would never receive. "I found her that day. I found her after they had just told her that her entire life had changed. Half catatonic and barely able to sign her name, let alone understand what the hell was happening. You think she would've come to me, of all people? You're dumber than you look. She's a good kid, Oliver. And she's scared, and worried, and she didn't know how to tell you. She didn't want to risk you doing something stupid, like oh, I don't know, come barging into a police station, causing a scene."
For what felt like the thirtieth time that minute, Oliver ran his hands over his face. He had no idea what he was doing. Lance was right, coming to the police station was a stupid move, but it was the only place he thought he could get some of his emotions out. He wanted a fight, and under any other circumstances, he felt pretty sure that Lance would've given one to him. Just not tonight, and not about this.
He looked over at the man who was watching him with curious eyes. He knew that he was being pitied. The fact that he was the man that had been responsible for ruining his marriage and his life for a good chunk of years apparently wasn't a factor, which only served to twist Oliver's stomach even more. He had felt sick since Dig had called Felicity out, right in the middle of his lair. His home base. Only the last shred of his self control kept him from hunching over and being ill right there in the interrogation room.
"What do you get out of this? Why are you being so good to her?"
Lance let out a strangled laugh. "I got two girls who don't let me buy them a cup of coffee, let alone take care of them. Helping her seemed like the right thing to do for both of us."
He wasn't unaware of the jealousy that was bubbling within him. Lance had been with Felicity every step of the way - even being there when she had just found out - and he hadn't. He was supposed to be. He was supposed to help her, to support her like she supported him in everything. And he couldn't get that back. He couldn't get the past four weeks back, couldn't get healthy Felicity back, couldn't get stupid, oblivious Oliver back.
"I've got to go." He couldn't stay there anymore. He had to move, had to run, had to do something.
"Before you go, you need to decide something, Queen."
"What?" He bit out.
"If you're gonna be there for her, you need to be there for her. Every. Single. Piece of you. You can't half-ass this. You're either in or you're out, Oliver. Something like this, it'll - it's gonna change you. And you need to take that under serious consideration as to how its going to affect the rest of your life before you go on and make promises you can't keep."
He heard his words but didn't process them. He just opened the door and blew past him and the other officers that appeared between him and the door. In another life, Oliver would've stayed and flashed a smile and a quick apology for interrupting. He tried very hard to keep his image more than a little professional now that QC was running smoothly. But that wasn't going to happen tonight. He didn't care what rumors showed up on the gossip blogs; he wasn't stopping for anything.
He had known he would end up there. He had always known, from the second he took that step around Felicity in the foundry and up the stairs.
His knuckles still stung, even though he had wrapped them in a fit of worry. He wasn't concerned with himself, he just realized how out of his depth he was in all of this. He had punched a few holes in the drywall in the club, which he knew wasn't going to go unnoticed by Thea, but the second he saw his bloody knuckles, he panicked.
Felicity had only said 'cancer' and 'a type of lymphoma.' He didn't know what that meant. As blood trickled between his hands and slipped over his palm, he starting cursing himself out. What if she wasn't allowed to be around other bodily fluids, or open wounds or something? What if they got infected? Would he not be allowed to see her because of that? So he ran downstairs to the lair and poured isopropyl alcohol all over his hands and anywhere else on his body he suspected that he might have a cut. It stung like hell but Oliver took it as penance; he deserved to feel this pain. He deserved to feel more. He did a perfunctory job wrapping his hands, the alcohol still burning his cuts underneath the sterile bandage. He felt fairly confident that he was staving off infection, at least for the night.
And then he came here.
He wasn't going to go in. He knew that, too. He had cut the motor on the Ducati a few streets over so she wouldn't hear him coming and made his way across the few city blocks on foot. The house across from her's had a sloped roof that provided a good angle into her living room and moderate coverage from any prying eyes on the street. He swung himself up there and settled in, not knowing what he was going to be seeing, just knowing that he was where he needed to be.
He hadn't anticipated laughter. Or Roy, for that matter. He thought if anyone was with Felicity tonight, it would have been Dig. But that kid in the red hoodie never stopped surprising him. He could make out the takeout containers in front of them - a Chinese place that they rarely ordered from because no one but Felicity liked it. They were sitting on the couch facing each other, Felicity sitting cross legged and talking animatedly with her hands and Roy casually draped in the corner, shaking his head at something she had said.
He could tell the second the conversation shifted. Whatever light and breezy topic they had previously discussed was pushed to the side, and a heaviness settled over not only them, ensconced in her living room, but him as well.
This was her life now. Heavy topics and impossible decisions and brushing away tears with a shrug because they fell so often that it was just second nature at this point. A pang suddenly shot through his heart so strongly that he couldn't stop himself from grasping it through his leather jacket. He hurt for her so damn badly. He wiped away a few stray tears, but it seemed to be a futile action. They weren't stopping.
He watched them for a while. He watched Felicity make Roy feel better, and then watched Roy comfort Felicity. He watched them fall into what had to have been an easy silence, and then watched as she tucked her head onto his shoulder, a deep shuddering breath running through her. He watched as Roy gently reached for the remote and eventually changed the channel to a baseball game. He watched as the time ticked past and Felicity's body was so still he almost had to physically restrain himself from going over and checking her breathing. And he watched as Roy turned off the TV and gathered her up, disappearing down the hall for a few minutes before returning alone.
He watched Roy look impossibly frustrated that he couldn't stop the tears that were falling from his eyes. He watched the lost look in fascination, knowing that it had to echo his own.
Oliver watched the sun rise over Felicity's house that morning, not knowing what the day was going to bring.