Lost and Found

21. Jailbreak

PART ONE: FAMILY VALUES

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE: JAILBREAK

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FELICITY & OLIVER, STARLING CITY, USA

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The hospital was her sanctuary, as much as a hospital where the secret love of your life was recovering could be anyways. Felicity felt drained, her nerves had been strained to the maximum before the Winchesters had returned. Sam at least had the decorum to step lightly around the topic, Dean on the other hand went crashing through the scenario like a rhino in a porcelain shop, overturning everything. She was beginning to resent ever meeting them. 

After the first night at the hospital news among the staff had traveled fast and the stares became the same as the ones that followed her through the sweating masses of Verdant. Here, she was the only girl that got millionaire Oliver Queen's attention. It was both good and bad, and right now with her puffy red eyes and her tear stained face it was definitely bad.

She made her way through the hospital with her head down, saying as little as it took to get her inside and to Oliver's side. She had exchanged her heels for flats in the car and her blonde hair tied in an uncharacteristically messy bun on top of her head. Sure, she should probably be at work, but without a boss there, there was no way in hell she was going up to that office.

She knocked gently on the door when she approached, listening carefully for sounds of life as she pushed the door open. "Oliver?"

"Felicity?" came the immediate response as his head appeared around the corner as if he had been preparing to attack whoever came through.

"What-"

"Sorry, just a little restless, that's all." He looked past her, towards the door she had just came through. "Just you today?" she nodded and he turned his focus to her, his shoulders relaxing as he did so. That's when he noticed her bloodshot eyes. Without a word he pulled her in, tucking her head under his chin as she let her purse slip from her hand and fall with a thump to the floor.

"What have I done Oliver?" she whispered into his shoulder and she felt him tense a little. He pulled back and looked her in the eye for a moment before letting her go and slowly easing himself down on the hospital bed. 

"Well, did you at least get what you wanted?" 

She eyed him carefully, wondering if she should unload her burden onto someone who so obviously had his own burden's to bear. "Yeah," she gave a halfhearted laugh and Oliver frowned, not used to the sound coming from Felicity's mouth. "I found out what I wanted to hear, but now I wonder if it was stupid to find out."

"Put the deal aside, why is it stupid?" she walked towards the window as she listened to his words.

"I can't tell anyone what I found out," she said watching a man pop wheelies in his wheel chair, a cigarette stuck in his mouth as he did so. 

"Was that part of the deal?" she shook her head and turned back towards him, unconsciously pacing back and forth across the room.

"So why not tell? Are you at least going to go see the guy?" She shook her head. 

"It will change things Oliver, none of you will look at me the same and I - I can't deal with that, not now." She heard the crinkle of the mattress behind her and she turned to see Oliver standing in the way of her pacing line. He approached her slowly and with some hesitation, cupped her face in his hands and drew it up to look at him. 

"Nothing you could say could change how I feel about you. Not now, not ever." Her breath hitched in her throat as she stared up into Oliver's blue eyes. His eyes searched her face, taking in every familiar detail he had taken in since the first time he saw her. If the Winchesters were right, and they probably were- damn them, he only had two years to memorize her face. He had two years and she'd be gone, Felicity Smoak would be smoke in the wind, gone in a faint breeze and he couldn't bear that thought. He couldn't imagine his world without her, he realized then, she was in everything he did.