Though the pressure's hard to take And it's breaking over me
It's the only way I can escape
It seems a heavy choice to make
And now I am under all
A thousand miles down to the sea bed
Found the place to rest my head
Never let me go
~ "Never Let Me Go" by Florence & the Machine
"Felicity, what's taking so long?" he asked as he put the phone to his ear.
Silence.
"Felicity?"
"Oli-ver…"
Her voice was weak and broken. He looked over to Diggle and waited for a response. "What's wrong? Where are you?"
"Ver-d-"
"Verdant," Diggle said quickly.
Oliver kept the phone to his ear as the two of them hurried out of the Foundry and up into the empty and very closed Verdant. They scanned the area before bursting through the doors. Oliver didn't care that he had no mask and that his hood was down. All he cared about was Felicity. All he wanted was to wrap his arms around her and keep her safe.
"Felicity?!"
There she was, Felicity Smoak was in the Verdant parking lot, face down with the phone held up to her ear. She wasn't moving. Diggle was at her side assessing her before he was. It wasn't that he didn't want to be the first one there, he did, but it was as if his heart had stopped for a moment and his brain had needed the moment to process.
"She's breathing, but...Oliver! Oliver!" Diggle shouted at him.
During his time in purgatory, his first instinct was always survival...now...that had changed. Oliver crouched down on the other side of Felicity as he and Diggle gently turned her onto her back. She was dressed in a the black dress he'd seen her in earlier, a pink coat, her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her glasses had a broken lens, and one shoe was a foot behind where Felicity lay on the ground. Now, he realized, that the ONE thing...the ONE person who could hit his trigger wasn't his own survival, but hers… Oliver would do ANYTHING if it meant making sure that Felicity lived.
"Let's get her down into the Foundry," Diggle told him.
Oliver gently gathered her up into his arms and looked down at her feet as he heard the other shoe drop to the pavement. "Maybe we should take her to the hospital," he whispered as he stared down at her ghostly white face. What had happened to her? He got to his feet, but Diggle was already steering him back the way they'd come.
"Do you know where she's been?"
"She was with US at Queen Consolidated all day."
"She said she was going home, right?"
Oliver stared down at her as they moved back through the doors to Verdant. He kept telling himself that she wa sleeping. Sleeping just sounded so much more peaceful than whatever the reality of the situation actually was. "She said she was going to stop to pick up ice cream."
"Probably that store down the street from her house."
"What do you think's wrong with her?" Oliver asked as they headed down the steps and into the Foundry. He was careful not to jostle her body too much. He didn't want to hurt her, especially since they didn't know what was wrong. As he descended down the stairs, he skipped steps, trying to get her onto the metal table faster. That table, he thought, was never supposed to be used as a surgery or medical table and it seemed like that was all they did. Carefully, he laid her down. For a moment, he thought she wasn't breathing, but she was...breathing the faintest of breaths.
"That's what we're going to find out," Diggle told him and started to work at removing her coat, Oliver helped and realized that Diggle must have picked up her pink heels because they were sitting on the chair behind him. He watched as Diggle discarded the coat, setting it on top of the heels.
He looked her over and he wondered if the appearance of her seemed to be extremely fair because of the black she was wearing, the stark difference between the two extremes. "The plant that I have from Lian Yu...maybe it can-"
"We don't even know what's wrong with her yet," Diggle told him as he carefully checked her. He checked her vitals, shone light into her eyes, and started to check her body (Oliver assumed for wounds). "Crap…"
"What?" Oliver asked and looked to where Diggle's dark hands were holding Felicity's limp arm. Between his hands, her flesh was snow white and two familiar distinguishing marks had tarnish her perfect skin. "Digg-" His eyes widened and his heart felt like it was in a vice. There had been victims all over Starling City over the past month with those same marks. "We have to get her to the hospital-"
"It's too late for that," Diggle told him and immediately started to riffle through their medical supplies.
Vertigo.
A Vertigo overdose.
They'd seen this.
All of the people had seemed random. The police and not even Felicity had been able to figure out a link between any of them. They had no similarities in who they were, their routine, or anything else. It was truly random.
"What if we gave her the antiserum?" Oliver questioned. He moved away from Felicity's side and headed for his little bag of magic herbs from Lian Yu. Before when Oliver had been first dosed with Veritgo from the very first Count Veritgo, the herbs had helped him. Oliver just hoped that they could help Felicity. He realized as he grabbed the pouch that it didn't seem like he had that much left. Oliver just hoped that it would help her. Returning back to the table, he set the herb pouch on the edge of the table and watched as Diggle did what he thought they needed to do. Oliver wondered though if she'd have a better chance at a hospital…
Diggle had already started an IV and set up a bag to keep her hydrated. They'd seen what this new Vertigo did to people and that was death. "It hasn't been working," Diggle reminded. After random people, including Diggle, city-wide had been dosed with Vertigo instead of the flu vaccine there had been a vaccine released by Queen Consolidated in order to help those affected. The hospitals had already tried it. So far, it hadn't worked.
"Maybe it could ease the symptoms," Oliver told him.
"I thought that's what your tea was for?" Diggle asked as he motioned to the pouch.
"No time for tea," he said as he grabbed the pouch. "Get me a bottle of water."
"Oliver-"
On Lian Yu, he'd eaten the herbs straight and drank them down with a gulp of water. That's how they'd been used in other extreme circumstances and he didn't want to chance not doing that now. He'd just been waiting for Diggle to finish the IV line. Oliver carefully used his arm to prop her up and then started to try to give her the herbs on his own. Diggle was there a moment later with a sigh.
"Maybe we should take her to the hospital," Diggle said.
"Would they take better care of her?" Oliver asked as together they managed to get the herbs into her mouth and carefully Diggle got her to swallow them with the water. His concern about on what was best for her. He didn't care if he had to call Lance as Oliver Queen and explain to him that he was the Arrow if that meant that Felicity would receive the care that she needed. They eased her back down.
Diggle was quiet at first, staring down at her. "No," he responded finally and looked up at Oliver. "The hospitals keep getting more and more people. Here we can give her one on one care," he explained. "We might need a few more things-"
"Anything," Oliver told him. "I'll make sure we have everything that you think we need."
"Oliver, you know that no one has-"
"She's going to," Oliver told him.
"I couldn't believe the call that came in...I said it had to be some kind of prank...so I came myself to see it."
The words caught him by surprise, mainly by whose mouth they were coming out of. Oliver froze what he was doing. He couldn't wait until morning. Every medical supply place was already closed, so Oliver had to break in. He'd thought he'd disabled the alarm correctly, but here the police were… Oliver had planned to leave money in the register, more than enough for what he was taking. He wasn't a thief, but he NEEDED these things. He'd do anything to keep Felicity alive...to give her the best chance of surviving…
She wouldn't die.
He wouldn't fail her.
"The Arrow...robbing a medical supply store…"
"I didn't damage property, Detective," he finally spoke up. His back was still to Lance. "I'm sorry. I NEED these things and I'm leaving behind more than they're being sold for."
"Why?"
"I can't wait until morning," he told him. "I'm DESPARATE."
"Why? What's going on?"
Quentin Lance had been an enemy turned ally, but Oliver still knew that he had to be careful with him. They had a delicate relationship. He turned slowly to him, he was ready to reveal his identity if that was what it took to make sure Felicity would get the supplies. "Felicity Smoak."
"What about her?"
"She was dosed with Vertigo...and you and I are both aware of what's happened to everyone else who's ended up in a hospital after receiving a dose of this new recipe."
"Oh my God…" Lance mumbled. "Do you have someone who can take care of her? Medically? Someone better than the hospital?"
Oliver nodded, his head bowed. "Please, Detective...let me save her."
"Go. I'll lock up here."
He turned and gathered up the supplies that he'd been sent to get. He knew that Lance liked Felicity and he was sure that that helped things… Oliver still felt horrible for what he had done, but he HAD to do it. He HAD to save her. Oliver was quick as he made his exit.
When it came to Felicity, he would do anything.
"It's been THREE DAYS and she's stopped breathing...I've lost count of how many times...and you STILL say she's critical?"
"Your screaming isn't helping," Diggle told him. "She might be unconscious, but she can likely hear you and FEEL the tension. Neither of which is good for healing."
Diggle was calm and Oliver found that infuriating. He raked his fingers through his hair and let out a heavy breath. In those three days, the ONLY time he'd left the Foundry was when he'd made that run to get medical supplies. He paced back and forth and Oliver just wanted to KNOW that she was going to be okay. So far, they'd kept her alive. That had been the goal and they'd accomplished it thus far, but why wasn't she awake yet?
"You KNOW that we're lucky she's still alive, Oliver," Diggle told him seriously and yet he was still calm. "She's strong. She's going to pull through. She's breathing on her own."
"She stopped breathing yesterday," Oliver pointed out.
"We're nearly at the twenty-four hour mark since that happened," he countered as he held up the notebook he had in his lap. Diggle had been documenting EVERYTHING, just in case they DID have to take her into the hospital. Everything that she'd been given, even just to keep her hydrated.
Oliver KNEW that Diggle was doing everything he could do, but it was just hard. Hard to see Felicity in the state she was in and still not knowing if she was really going to be okay. He'd made a decision, though. The day before when she'd stopped breathing and her heart had stopped...he didn't know how long it had taken until they'd gotten her back. Diggle said it hadn't been long because they had her hooked up to machines that had told him the second that they'd lost her. It had felt like hours to him. In that time, he'd decided that he wouldn't put Felicity in the middle of any more Arrow anything. Her life could NEVER be at risk again.
Oliver loved Felicity dearly. He realized that he'd really never told her that. Never told her how much she REALLY meant to her. With no one else watching, with no plan in the works to save the city. Just honestly.
"I know you don't want to hear this, but why don't you go shower? Take a nap? Then you can pick us up something to eat and then I can go and do all of that."
"You should go HOME," Oliver told him. "Lyla and-"
"I will, I will," Diggle responded tiredly. "But you're going to sleep first…"
"Digg-"
"Don't argue with me about this. Roy will be here later and you'll need to make sure he knows what to do if something happens."
"I'm not going to leave her side," Oliver argued.
"He should STILL know."
Oliver supposed he was right. They never knew when one of them was going to be injured, let alone seriously injured. It would be good training for Roy if anything else. "Okay," he whispered a bit defeated a moment later.
"You know, I'm probably pronouncing words and names wrong-"
"No."
Oliver froze and stared at Felicity's still form. He'd been reading her books that Diggle had brought from Felicity's home. Diggle had insisted that it was good for her recovery and that she would be able to hear him. Oliver would do ANYTHING for Felicity, even read novels. He was fairly sure that he'd done more reading over two days than he'd done during his entire academic life.
"Read."
"Felicity?" he whispered and leaned forward, dropping the book to the floor, and took her hand. He looked her over and watched for any signs that he wasn't hallucinating. That she was doing better. Tears filled his eyes as her bright blue ones started to flutter open. The tears fell and his voice broke as he said her name again. "Fe-li-city…"
"Hi," she barely got out. A small smile broke out on her face. Felicity batted her eyes for a moment and seemed to be trying to stretch.
"You were injected with Vertigo…you're going to be okay," Oliver explained. "But nothing bad is ever going to happen to you again." He didn't care if she was going to fight him on it, he couldn't live his life and know that he was the reason for an injury or even if she'd died. He'd almost lost her too many times over the last week. His heart just couldn't handle it. For Felicity, he would do anything...even if that meant breaking his own heart in the process.
The End.