On Borrowed Time

1. Deja Vu

PART ONE: RUN

CHAPTER ONE: DEJA VU

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TEAM ARROW, STARLING CITY, USA

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It had been exactly eighteen months, two weeks and three days since Felicity had made the worst decision of her life. As it turns out, striking a deal with the King of Hell was a bad move and her two years was almost up. More unfortunately for her, she had two brothers who knew more about this kind of thing than anyone should. She never should have asked.

"When your time's up, you'll know. The hell hounds come a callin' and you're done. You can run but all that will do is wind you torn up and away from home instead of in it." 

Dean's voice echoed in her head and since that fateful phone conversation two weeks ago, that was all she could think about. That and the vagueness of 'what you have and they took', the words of the meta-wolf before she blew him up. She sighed and tapped her pen furiously on the desktop, her mind filled with the thoughts of hell hounds and where her brothers were now.

"Felicity?" she looked up to see Oliver poking his head out the glass door of his office. She felt her mood deflate further as she knew what the look in his eyes meant. She had destroyed the coffee maker in a rage of self-pity and anger a month ago and her options had been replace it or go get the coffee. She refused to replace it on premise that she hated going to the staff room and feeling the eyes of judgement on her. Her job both an upgrade and a downgrade from her old position made more than one employee of Queen Consolidated question her association with Oliver. 

Of course, it was her association with his nighttime persona that landed her on the top floor. It was also her association with his nighttime persona that had nearly cost her her life on more than one occasion. But no one knew that and people liked to gossip, as such she had became the office 'floozy' when someone had seen them arrive together in Oliver's convertible. Of course, running down the street every time one of them wanted a cup of coffee got old really fast and she had grudgingly replaced it a few days ago. 

"What?" she responded, her voice snappier than she had intended. 

"Can you bring us some coffee please?" Felicity stared at him for a moment, her grip so tight on her pen that she thought it might snap. She urged herself to release it and one by one her fingers dropped the pen until it clattered on the desktop. She bit her tongue, feeling a rant dancing on the tip of it. There were people here and appearances needed to be kept up, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time.

"Of course," she responded, but her voice was stiff and mechanic. Oliver gave her a knowing look before ducking back into the office, a look that said 'we'll talk about this later'. She stood and headed towards the last place she wanted to be, her black pumps clicking on the floor as she went. The top floor was peaceful, one floor down might as well have been her six months gone in a flash.

She remembered all of Dean's words as she stepped in to the elevator and began the quick decent to the floor below. In seconds the elevator dinged and the cheerful sound made her grimace as she stepped out into hostile territory. She was behind enemy lines now. She nodded at the people she passed and tried to paste a smile on her face but it was useless and she let it fall from her features immediately. The only people who would accept her here were down more than one floor. 

She stood outside the staff room and smoothed her skirt and shirt before taking a deep breath and entering. The room fell silent as she appeared, and she tried to ignore the stares as she bee lined for the coffee maker. Quietly and carefully she pulled the cups free and filled them, arranging them on a tray from the cupboard above her and filling the small dishes with selections of dairy and sugars. Her mood lightened slightly as she turned to leave, having seemed to have dodged the comments this time.