I Will Love You (until I bleed)

Summary - She listens to the calming texture of Oliver Queen's voice as he calls for an ambulance that she knows isn't going to make it in time. Her blood's on his hands.

Disclaimer - I do not own the characters or anything involved with the Arrow fandom. No claim intended.

She'd been shot before.

She had taken a bullet for Sara Lance. She had felt the bullet burrow into her shoulder and set fire to her bones. She had seen the bloody bullet being torn back out of her skin.

Felicity Smoak had been shot and she had survived. So it was only natural for her to assume that if a similar situation arised, she'd be ready for it.

Turns out, being shot is a lot different when the target is your chest.

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She's staring into the barrel of the gun. She's afraid to look into it, but she's even more terrified of looking anywhere else.

The goosebumps are prominent on her arms and her legs, and they're not there just because the wind is cold around her body that is covered only by a peplum dress. The dress is dark blue. She wore it a lot. Never thought she'd die in it. Then again, no one really thinks about what they'll be wearing when they die - but it's all that Felicity can think about when her eyes are swimming in the barrel of imminent demise. She'll be found wearing the dress that she wore to work at least once a week.

How unfortunate.

Her eyes - big, almond-shaped, filled with blue dread - follow the barrel as it starts to descend.

Her heart begins to pulsate violently inside of her rib cage, making her veins grow cold and sore, making her knees so weak she might faint and fall towards the cold, hard ground.

And her dress choice is far from her mind as the gun clocks and the trigger is pulled backwards.

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(bang)

The metal embeds itself into her chest (like an arrow-head, like she's seen far too many times). It soars through her spine and exits neatly out of her back. It's like a giant force is being thrust upon her, like the greatest gust of wind, and it's breaking her knees - all from such a small bullet, as well.

She tries to gasp. It's instinctive that she does, but that one gasp takes so much more out of her than she would've thought. She drops to her knees, her skin now marred by stones and smothered in dirt, and she falls to the side.

Her blood spills.

It paints the sidewalk red.

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She might've laughed at the situation had her lungs not been shutting down.

Ever since she began working with the Arrow, she imagined death being close by at all times, death caused by enemies that might be looking to weaken the man in green, by vengeance of lost loves or betrayal, or by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but she is dying from a wound caused by a common mugger as opposed to an adversary in a mask or by a vial of something intoxicating. She wishes she could laugh - because what are the odds of that?

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It feels like she's burning inside, a slow fire that spreads throughout her chest and trails along her bones, but she's so cold on the outside. She's so cold that she's shivering. Her chest is heaving - up, down, up, down. It's aching for a strong heartbeat. And her lungs beg for air, but each breath she steals is so antagonizing, so overpowering, that each inhale causes panic to course through her entire body like a warning signal and as much as she wants to continue breathing, she doesn't.

She hates pain. Hates that she can't handle it as well as Oliver or Sara or Diggle or Roy. Hates that she's the weak one and she still is because she can't even crawl or yell for help.

There's so much panic, too much, and it spreads to her eyes and to her icy lips when she feels a pair of arms engulf hers.

The arms draw her into a wide chest and suddenly she is so warm that nothing else seems to matter; not even the hole in her chest.

.
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"You're not my employee. You're my partner."

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She can hear a voice that accompanies the limbs around her back. It's a faint sound at first, like someone shouting into an open chasm, like an echo in a narrow alleyway, and suddenly it's so close, so near that it's all she can hear. And when she finally identifies just who is calling her name - over and over and over and over - she doesn't know whether to be overjoyed or devastated - because as good as it feels to know that he is the one beside her, he's the one cradling her and sharing her panic, she really doesn't want to see his face.

(there's a part of her that thinks "Oh, hallelujah. Oliver is here. Oliver saves people. Oliver can help me before..." but she knows better than to get her hopes up)

(she's smarter than that)

"Felicity?"

She opens her eyes to look at him, but she regrets it, just like she knew she would.

"Oh, God-" His face is as frozen as her fingertips, and his eyes are seeing red. "What happened?"

If she could, she would have given him a play-by-play of the mugging-gone-wrong, but she didn't have the power to do that.

Instead, she listens to the calming texture of Oliver Queen's voice as he calls for an ambulance that she knows isn't going to make it in time.

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"I need you to be safe."

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"It's okay," He's whispering promises that she can't pick up on. She can't make out what he's trying to say, but she can hear his voice surround her. His voice is enough. "You're okay. Felicity, it's going to be alright. Do you hear me?"

She tries to reply - tries to say that she can't understand - but her lungs are betraying her. So she looks at him. She meets his eyes. And she stares right at him.

His face is overcast with dark shadows from the moonlight that hovers above them, though she can see his reaction quite too clearly. He's scared. It hides, imprisoned inside of his midnight blue eyes, but she can see it, and it breaks her heart and mends it all the same.

"The ambulance will be here in a couple of minutes. You're going to be okay." He's nodding through his words. He's trying to smile at her, but it's hard to smile when you're so terrified that you can't stop shivering all over.

When his hand comes down to touch her cheek, she swims in how warm his fingertips feel against her cold skin, how nice and warm and wet-

Wet.

Damp with red.

Her blood's on his hands.

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"I love you. Do you understand?"

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Her eyes are closing, but she is more aware of her surroundings than ever before. She can feel every smack of harsh wind against her face, hear every tree branch slam against the tall buildings that stand adjacent to them, can smell the overpowering scent of Oliver Queen next to her. She feels lucky to have so many distractions that keep her from thinking about the fact that there's a hole in her chest that's spurting blood all over the sidewalk and the man she loves without a doubt is shaking and aching and screaming at her to open her eyes.

It's almost peaceful - all these little distractions.

"Felicity, open your eyes." He isn't asking. He's begging on his knees. And the desperation is thick in his tone, so thick that he chokes on it. He chokes on a sob that follows it - because it's all starting to become horrifically clear to him now - her eyes are closed - blood stains her lips and her dress and their hands - her heart is so slow and her pulse is trying much too hard to function normally. The situation and what is about to happen is becoming so clear to him that it causes his chest to constrict and hurt.

The ambulance isn't going to make it in time - even if it did, she'd probably bleed out all over the van and she'd never make it.

Oliver's fingers have slipped away from her cheek, leaving a bloody trail in their wake. He's taken her palm into his, and he's stroking the back of her hand with his fingertips. She's not calm, she's not calm at all, but he's helping nonetheless.

"Open your eyes, Felicity. Please. Just open your eyes, okay? Look at me." His voice is panic-stricken and unsteady, it breaks and it wavers and it hurts her to hear it.

She responds by twitching her fingertips against his palm, though her eyes do not open.

"No," He chokes out - it's like some sort of growl - so wild and uninhibited and terrified - and he moves to wrap her up in him. His embrace is strong, but gentle enough to avoid the entry and exit wounds - the wounds that are seeping with blood still - and she's surprised that she hasn't bled out yet.

(where is this ambulance?)

Oliver's body heat envelops her as he holds on tighter - but she's so cold; too icy to feel warm - like she might fly away if he moves his arms even an inch. He's as still as she is, the only movement being the way that his arms and ribs are shaking against her because he just cannot stop crying.

She has seen him cry before; seen him cry from frustration and guilt and ache; but she's never seen him cry quite like this before. Crying so violently that the tears clog up in his throat and no sound is allowed to escape from his lips.

The sounds make her wish that he had never found her. Death is a lot easier to deal with when you don't have the memories of it imprinted into your brain. He'd already watched his father die. Already held Tommy in his arms as the light faded from his eyes. Already had a front-row seat as Slade Wilson stuck a sword into his mother's chest. He'd watched people die his entire life. She's adding one more name to that list - and that thought destroys her more than a bullet ever could.

With what she thinks might be the last of her energy, she forces her eyes back open. Her head slumps to the side, to rest on Oliver's arm, as she offers him a smile that does not reach her lips but swims in her eyes, and she pries apart her lips to speak to him.

"S'okay," She croaks the words out. Her lips feel sticky when she speaks and all she can taste is copper and pennies and panic from the blood that stains her mouth red. It's uncomfortable to talk with bloody lips but she tries. She tries so hard. "Oli..Oliver. S'okay."

She wasn't finished, but Oliver's voice suddenly envelops hers, as though he just has to talk to her now that she can.

"Don't worry," His hand grips at hers once more - grips so tightly that she loses all feeling in her fingers - or is that the bullets' fault? "The ambulance will be here any second, okay? And we'll get you better and you'll be alright."

He's lying and they both know it.

If he had gotten to her a minute earlier than he had, or two, maybe she would've had enough time to wait for an ambulance. But that's not what happened and neither of them can change that.

"Oliver, it's okay." She can feel her eyes fighting to close. She fights back. She's desperate to get one last look at him, but his face is disoriented in her vision and she can't see him as clearly as she wants to. She claws at his hand, battles to lace her fingers with his - because it's all she can do and she needs to do something.

She's trying to smile, succeeding for the most part, when she continues speaking. "The team..you..Diggle..all of it. S'been the best years of my life." She can't hear anything anymore. She can't feel his arms. She doesn't even know if she can speak anymore, but she moves her lips anyway. "Thanks for letting me be apart of something. Oli..Oliver Queen."

The words are all but whispered into the air and she fears that they will be lost. She fears that Oliver didn't hear them - she fears because she knows that she doesn't have the strength to repeat herself.

If Oliver did reply, she didn't hear it.

She wants to fight for breath, fight for just five more minutes - five minutes, that's all she asks - but it dawns on her that she's not strong enough. She's got a brain that some would kill for, she's got a heart that grows with every beat, she's more brave than anyone gives her credit for, but strong is something that she's not. And she can't fight when she's already been knocked to her knees.

She can't breathe anymore.

Her heart's stopped beating.

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"You will always be my girl, Felicity."

- First time writing a death scene. I apologize if it isn't accurate -

Thank you for taking the time to read.