A/N: This story can be read on its own but it is a companion piece to my other two stories, Priorities and Consequences and rounds out the trilogy set immediately after the season one final. I started to write this before season two but got stuck half way, so it is a little (read very) far away from where the show ended up.

Warnings: No mentions of specific events and contains some violence.

Takes place right after the end of season one, and in an AU where Tommy lived.

Chapter 1

It was Sunday afternoon and Felicity was making her weekly pilgrimage to Tommy Merlyn's hospital room.

It had been over two months since the destruction of the Glades and Oliver had helped pull Tommy's nearly dead body out of the ruins of CNRI. It had been a long night for everyone involved, but Tommy had pulled through and lived, though not quite the way everyone had hoped. He was still in a coma, moved to one of the permanent rooms at the Starling General Hospital. The doctors had hinted at turning off the life-support, but with no living family members present to give the order and having been told in no uncertain terms by a lawyer, a detective and two angry billionaires that it was not going to happen, they had let it be.

And that was why every week just before the end of visiting hours, Felicity came to see Tommy. Between angst filled visits from Oliver, desperate and lonely visits from Laurel and the sad ones from Thea, she figured that she would be a nice breath of simplicity. After all they said coma patients could hear people talking to them. Laurel no doubt would talk of her guilt and regret, she had caught Oliver talking about the Island and all its complications and Thea talking about the old days, full of what was and would never be. Felicity had never really met Tommy, never talked to him, so she talked about funny moments in her week, the latest thing gone viral on the internet, what movies and TV shows Tommy had missed or what had happened in the news. The small things, just for ten minutes, once a week.

This particular Sunday she was stopping by after leaving the Verdant basement. Oliver still wasn't going out weekly as the Hood, but he was keeping tabs and every once in a while he deemed a situation important enough for him to 'hood-up' as Diggle liked to call it. A few fake Glades charities and one or two insurance companies who denied claims were targeted, but that was more of Felicity's cyber terrorism than him putting the fear of God into people. So it was after an exhausting day of staring at the little numbers and figures on her computer screen that she dropped into the seat next to Tommy's bed. He was still as usual, his beard thicker than he had ever worn it when awake, his skin pale from lack of outdoor light.

Even if he did wake up he would have a hard time of rehabilitation, not to mention the scars on his chest from when an iron bar had gone right through him.

Felicity smothered a yawn before she launched into that week's story.

"So…who's the girl?"

Oliver blinked, looking up from his paperwork as Thea wandered into his office at Verdant. "What?"

"Someone from a jewellery store rang for you at the house. Apparently the selection you requested is ready."

"Your point?"

"Mum isn't really in the position to wear jewellery and my birthday isn't for months. Therefore, who's the girl? And I know it isn't Laurel. You two finally sorted out your stuff."

"And how would you know that?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"We had coffee last week."

"Anything else about my social life that I should know, Speedy?"

"Well you do have to get a date for the charity ball being held by some stuffy company in a few weeks."

"I already knew that."

"Oh, so the jewellery is bribery to get the girl to go with you," Theo teased.

Oliver snorted. "I don't need jewellery to get the girl."

"So there is a girl! It's Felicity Smoak isn't it. That IT girl from the company. Why haven't you introduced us yet, Ollie."

"Whoa, Speedy, slow down."

"Wait, you haven't asked her yet?! Oliver, you don't spring a charity ball on a girl without giving her enough time to find a dress, not to mention matching shoes. I taught you better than that, brother."

Oliver opened and closed his mouth a few times. "Can't you see I'm busy," he grumbled, gesturing at the papers that littered his desk.

"Don't be an idiot, Oliver," Thea laughed as she walked out.

Felicity woke up, not realising that she had fallen asleep in the first place. She was still in the hospital at Tommy's bedside, the constant beeping of the machines around him lulling her into sleep. But what then had woken her, she wondered, lifting her head from where it had landed, next to Tommy's hand on the mattress.

"Who are you?" a raspy voice asked and Felicity looked up with wide eyes at the equally wide eyes of Tommy Merlyn. "Please don't tell me you are my wife and I have amnesia."

Felicity shrieked and fell off her chair while a bevy of nurses and doctors rushed into the room, responding to the change in readings off the machines.

Felicity was ordered out of the room and she ended up sitting on one of the hallway chairs in a state of shock.

Tommy was finally awake.

Tommy didn't know his father was dead.

Tommy didn't know Oliver had killed him.

Someone was going to have to call Oliver and tell him the news. Felicity knew it was going to end up being her.

"Dammit."