You have failed this (Feli)city

By Cortexikid

Chapter 1: Eidolon

A/N: Hey, long-time fic-writer, first-time Olicity-story-poster here! For those who may or may not know, I've written these types of strange word-of-the-day type fics before and I've decided that I should try my hand at an Arrow one. :D Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: Arrow does not belong to me.

WOTD: EIDOLON; ei-do-lon noun. Misconception, delusion, fantasy, dream.

As she lay there, her back pressing into the freezing, sodden snow, gasps escaping her rapidly, causing little puffs to rise in the chilled air, she felt strangely...serene. This was not how she expected this to go. She saw the barrel of the gun, heard the shot ring in her ears, felt as the lead bullet ripped through her abdomen with a searing pain that rivalled any agony she'd ever felt in her entire life, but now it was...calm, as if time itself had stopped.

A heat, wet and sticky, covered her dress as she tried desperately to fumble for her phone. Footsteps drew nearer, he was coming back for her, she had to get up dammit, she wasn't going to end up like that poor teenager. She was stronger than that, had training for this...if only she could catch her breath.

The loud crunch of what was surely her phone being trod by a large boot met her ears in the dead stillness of the night. There goes that plan. She could smell him now, stale beer and cigarettes hanging in the air, his looming shadow standing right over her so she could see his face. Angry, cold, hazel eyes with a bitter, twisted mouth and weathered skin marked with scars that surely stemmed from heavy acne and more than one bar fight. And that's when she knew that he intended her to survive this. He wouldn't have let her see his face otherwise.

Crap. She didn't want this, never wanted for Oliver to carry this around with him. She knew he would blame himself. An ache that had nothing to do with her wound, panged in her chest at that thought. Oliver Queen had already been through so much already. Had lost too much already. She was damned if she were gonna let her name be added to that long list.

As he raised his .22 calibre pistol at her forehead, she used every ounce of strength she had left in her weakening body and knocked the gun from his grasp with her fist and pushed him clear off his feet, he slipping backwards in the icy slush, before dragging herself on her side towards the fallen weapon. The man, her sure-to-be-murderer, grasped at her ankles as he started to stand, but it was too late.

She felt her hand clutch the gun and the blast of the trigger sounded before she could even think about it, her finger squeezing almost as if on its own accord. A strangled yell escaped his throat as the bullet hit him square in his chest. Her heart hammered, her eyes frozen on him as he dropped to his knees, a shocked expression crossing his face as he stared down at the petite, blonde, IT-goddess-turned-executive-assistant-crime-fighti ng-extraordinaire. She doubted he would have thought hers to be the last face he'd ever see.

As his body crumbled to the ground beside her, she felt herself shiver deeply. The absolute unthinkable had happened. She had just taken a life. The life of a murderer, the life of a man who tortured and killed young people from the Glades was no more. She had broken Oliver's new rule, one she had supported. But, his tirade was over and that, in her mind, was a win, whatever consequences it meant for her.

She may not even make it to meet those consequences she realised, as her brain grew foggy and she fell back onto the ground with a pained cry. As she lay there, silence her only companion, something shone in the dark gloom, catching her eye. Slowly, she turned her head, a small smile of determination lighting her face as she spotted her attacker's cell phone buried a little in the snow to her left. With her last ounce of energy, she reached out and grasped it, closing her eyes just for a moment to steady the dizziness and quickly typing in the ever-so-familiar number.

It rang only once.

"Hello?"

"Oliv...er," she gasped, her golden hair fanning about her head as she lay in the snow, her glasses skewed as looked up at the millions of gleaming stars above her.

There could have been worse last sights for Felicity Smoak to behold.

"Oliver."

He leaped up, shoulders tense, eyes wild as they darted around his surroundings. He was in a hallway, white and pristine, abuzz with activity, the stench of antiseptic in the air.

The hospital.

"Whoa, hey, it's just me," John Diggle raised up his hands, one clasping a coffee that he now held out for his boss to take.

"Dig..." Oliver breathed, visibly shaken from his nightmare, taking the coffee but not drinking any.

"I saw the doc again on my way back. He told me they're finished and she'll be escorted down here in a minute," Diggle murmured, taking the seat that Oliver had just vacated.

He frowned at his friend's words, his eyes trailing down the corridor, towards the door where he knew she was behind, for what felt like the millionth time that night.

"They really don't wanna keep her in for observation? She was shot—"

"Like the doc said before, it was a flesh wound to the shoulder Oliver, the only reason she is here instead of back at the foundry where we coulda stitched her up, is because Lance got on the scene before we did," Diggle cut across him quietly as he saw him begin to grow agitated again.

The millionaire came crashing back to reality, his nightmare draining away to the dark recesses of his mind as the truth of what really transpired tonight came to the forefront, his memories replacing the horrid mental images. His bad dream had exaggerated the event, (something about blind terror at seeing his friend covered in blood, and lying in an alleyway flooded with police sirens and lights tended to do that to him) to a more serious degree.

She did get shot, the crimson-strained snow had confirmed that for him, but from his angle on the rooftop he had leapt onto in his haste, he had been unable to gauge how serious the wound was until he got the call from Lance, changed out of his hood and raced as fast as he could to Starling General Hospital. Those twenty-five minutes seemed like the longest in his life, his restless pacing in the hallway doing nothing to quell the panic flooding his veins. He tried every trick taught to him to calm his frayed nerves, but nothing was working. He knew the only way he'd relax was when he saw Felicity with his own eyes.

As he stood there, coffee in hand, he recalled what had transpired before he had fallen asleep.

After waiting for what seemed like forever, he finally saw a doctor approach, stopping him dead in his tracks, Diggle's tense shoulders in his peripheral vision, before his eyes bore into the man walking towards them, trying to dissect his stature – was he going to deliver bad news or good?

Please be good news, please be good news, please let her be okay...

"Mr. Queen?" the doctor held out his hand for Oliver to shake.

"How is she? Will she be—"

"Ms. Smoak was very lucky, Mr. Queen. The bullet merely grazed her shoulder; the wound was bloody, but superficial, not as bad as it looks," he assured the frazzled younger man.

The tenseness in Oliver dissipated almost immediately, deflating like a balloon. She was fine. Felicity was going to be okay.

"We're just dressing the wounds and working out the best pain medication for her, and then she'll be discharged. I would recommend for someone to stay with her as the meds can be very strong," the doctor looked between the two men, Oliver nodding along mutely, "for now, just sit tight, she shouldn't be too much longer."

"Thank you, Doctor," John called as the man turned on his heel and walked back down the corridor and out of sight.

Taking a deep breath, Diggle ran a hand over his head before dragging it down his face.

"I don't know about you, but I could use some coffee. You want one?" he turned to Oliver who was still staring into space where the doctor once was.

"Take a seat Oliver, I won't be long," he murmured, really looking at his friend for the first time that night.

He looked exhausted, dark circles under his eyes and stress lines marring his face, but his eyes, they were the worst. They were dull, pained, lost, and something else in them he hadn't seen since Tommy's death. He couldn't imagine what they'd look like if the news had been worse...

It was a testament of how tired Oliver truly was because he merely nodded and sunk down into a nearby chair, resting his elbows on his knees, his head bent, his hands still clutching Felicity's jacket that he found in that godforsaken bar when he was trying to frantically pinpoint her location after she called him, gasping his name into the phone.

It was the sound of her scared voice that rang in his ears as he felt his heavy eyelids droop and fall shut, this nightmare replaying tenfold in his subconscious...

"Are you gonna drink that?" Diggle gestured to the coffee, breaking through Oliver's reverie as he again found himself in the present, standing in the same goddamn corridor that was really beginning to bug him.

"How long has it been?" he growled out his frustration, taking a tip of the coffee just to suit his friend yet tasting nothing.

"Just over two hours since Felicity was admitted, about fifteen minutes since we spoke to the doc, I went to go get coffee and you fell asleep," John replied, taking a glance at his watch.

Fifteen minutes? Had that been all it took for that nightmare to ensnare him?

Before Oliver could dwell on that, a familiar figure came into view, the reinstated Detective Lance, looking none too happy as he rushed towards them.

"Queen, Mr. Diggle," he nodded at them, "how is Ms. Smoak?"

Oliver let John take control of the filling-in portion of the conversation before his impatience caught up to him, "how's the guy Felicity shot?"

Lance broke eye contact with Diggle and regarded the younger man.

"He's in surgery..." he sighed, "looks like he's gonna pull through, despite Ms. Smoak's respectable aim."

Fire burned in Oliver's veins. This guy not only preyed on troubled teenagers and murdered them for sport when they didn't do his bidding, but he tried to kill Felicity, his I.T. girl, his reluctant-assistant, his partner-in-crime-fighting, his friend, his girl Wednesday, his...Felicity in cold blood and he still had the audacity to survive a gunshot wound to the chest?!

It was enough to make him re-think his new cuff 'em and leave 'em policy.

"Why so serious?" a familiar voice rang out, causing the party of three to whip around, their gazes landing on the woman in question, her left shoulder heavily bandaged, her arm in a sling, her neck stained with droplets of blood as her glimmering, dilated pupils flickered between them.

"Felicity," Oliver gaped, his heart leaping in his chest at the sight of her, "how're you feeling?"

"Like I got the good meds," she deadpanned, before her lips quirked upward.

Stepping forward, she placed her uninjured hand on Detective Lance's arm.

"Thank you Detective Lance, you saved my life," she smiled a little dopily, clearly feeling the effects of the drugs.

"Just doin' my job, Ms. Smoak," he paused, staring down at her, before a darkness clouded his face, "I'll be in touch, okay? You go home and get some rest," he murmured, patting her hand, before stepping away from the group and calling over his shoulder "and no more playing hero, alright? We don't need another damn vigilante in this city..."

The trio watched him go, a beat of silence between them before Diggle spoke up.

"Lance is right, come on Felicity, we should get you home," he gently took her hand and began to lead her down the corridor, letting her lean on him.

"Wow, two handsome men escorting me home...I should get shot more often," she snickered, her normally zero brain-to-mouth-filter even less inhibited in her drug-addled state.

Diggle offered her a soft chuckle but Oliver quickly hid a wince. He couldn't get the sight of her blood in the snow out of his mind...the terrified breathy cry of her calling his name still ringing in his ears...

She was his friend, hell, his family, and he couldn't protect her.

He had failed her.

And even though he promised himself when they made their way out into the crisp early-morning air, that it wouldn't happen again, he knew that wasn't to be an achievable notion in their line of work. It may be the first time he'd truly failed her, but it probably wouldn't be the last...

A/N: Also posted on Ao3.

So this came out much more seriously than I intended. I'm usually a Romance/Humor genre kinda gal but meh, there'll be other chapters for that. I do love writing Olicity banter! :D

I do plan on writing more for this series with the same weird-word-of-the-day kinda format but am currently in my final year of college and supposed to be doing thesis-y stuff and things, so it might take a little while to update. But, whenever the mood strikes and I've the time to do it justice, I'll have a new chapter for you guys! In the meantime, you can find me on Tumblr under octoberobserver if that's your kinda thing. ~Cortexikid xx

NEXT CHAPTER TEASER:

"Really Felicity, he's kinda a jackass," Oliver practically sulked as he stood behind her chair.

"Oliver—"

"An ass-hat," he cut across her sigh.

"Maybe, but you have to admit, he is useful," she shook her head at his childishness, not bothering to turn around and look at what she knew was an indignant expression on his face.

"I just don't see what you or Thea see in—"

"Easy there Mr. Tall, Snark and Handsome, dial it down."