Is This What Fate Had In Store For Us

Day Six

It was a decision made in the heat of the battle. He was used to having to make split second choices, ones that could have dire consequences if he made the wrong move, but experience taught him that if he took even a second to doubt in the field it could mean the difference between him succeeding and failing. And he was failing. Again. Over and over, no matter what he changed, be it tiny or massive the day – this horrific day he was reliving in what seemed to be an endless brutal loop that was already driving him to the brink of sanity – always ended the same way, with his worst nightmare. The love of his life, his reason for believing in a hopeful future, his bright beautiful Felicity dead.

Watching the life drain from her sapphire eyes, seeing them dull instead of dancing with intelligence and humor knocked the breath from his lungs, as it always did. Each time he lost her it tore out another piece of his soul. Feeling that desolation day in and day out was eroding his belief that he could change their fate. Still each time he woke up to the feel of her in his arms, the soft warmth and weight of her body cuddled next his own Oliver couldn't help but be grateful he had another chance … to breath her in, to wake her from her peaceful slumber with desperate passion, but most of all for the chance to save her.

Day Eleven

The hard beat of the pavement reverberated up his legs as he raced down the street. The muscles in his right thigh throbbed in protest. A knife had torn through his suit and into his flesh leaving a jagged, bloody mess. He had tied it off, to staunch the bleeding, with a cord from one of his jettison arrows. It was crude first aid and it was barely working as the feel of the rough rope burrowed into this leg adding to his pain.

Oliver ignored it and pushed himself harder. Each time his foot landed he exhaled sharply and reminded himself that his pain meant nothing. He would be happy to feel the sharp, burning sting every moment for the rest of his life if his breakneck pace ensured that he could get to Felicity in time.

With his motorcycle totaled and coms down he had no choice but to run the ten blocks to his campaign headquarters. She was there, underneath his daytime mission, working on their nighttime one. Rain began to pelt down on him as the turned the corner. He was two blocks away when a ball of red and yellow exploded in front of him, debris shooting out in all directions from his intended destination. The force of the blast threw him back and he landed in a heap on the cracked concrete of the street. The back of his head made contact with the unforgiving surface and everything blurred.

He could feel the cold rain and even from the distance the heat of the flames as they licked at the surrounding structures. He could hear the distressed cries of on-lookers who emerged from the buildings lining the street to witness the destruction. It should have motivate him to get up, to help, to search but Oliver knew that it was too late to save Felicity.

It had been nearing ten o'clock, the latest she had made it since living the original Wednesday. A figure floated into his vision, hovering over him. An unfamiliar voice asked if he was okay – obviously he wasn't – but Oliver didn't respond. He did grunt in pain when his injuries were prodded but he had no sense of self-preservation as he lay sprawled out on freezing hard street. The only thought in his head was a repeated prayer that he would get to wake up to another chance to save her.

Day Twenty-Five

"Really?" she asked, brow furled. "I'm the smartest person you know and you've relived the same day twenty-four times before asking me about it?" He had managed to convince her to take the day off, he'd sent messages to the team, informing them that even if it was life and death that they were not to be disturbed, so Felicity sat cross-legged on their bed, in nothing but one of his old white t-shirts that engulfed her curvy frame. The over stretched collar rode down her left arm, exposing her shoulder to him. His fingers trailed over her exposed milky skin and he reveled at the sensation of his callused fingertips gliding over her soft flesh. So far he managed to keep some part of his body touching hers, convinced somehow that he wouldn't lose her this time if he never lost physical contact with her. That he could ground her, her very existence, to his own.

It surprised him that he could huff out a laugh after the last few weeks he had experienced – even if it had been the same day relived over twenty times. His world ended every single day in despair, but if that wrenching loop had taught him anything it was to appreciate the moment he was in. The present was perfect – his fiancé (he had tugged her into the living room after they made and ate a late breakfast together to dig the ring from the bowl of decorative stones before getting down on bended knee to ask Felicity to marry him) was squirreled away safe and sound in their loft, the early afternoon sunlight glinted off his mother's ring which sat prettily on her finger, and though her expression was bemused she glowed with happiness.

Each beat of his heart seemed to promise that this would be the day. The day that he would break the cycle, the day that Felicity would live, the day that would end with Wednesday finally turning into Thursday so that they would be able to start the rest of their lives as they were meant to – together. He smiled up at her from where he was stretched on his side across the base of their bed. "You barely believe me now Felicity," he pointed out.

She titled her head and began rattling off some of the more bizarre things they had experienced, "Mirakuru soldiers, metahumans, restorative hot tubs, magic … your own personal Groundhog's Day barely rates."

Awed by her easy acceptance and because he just could, Oliver snaked his hand up to cup her head to pull her down for a kiss. It was a brief soft meeting of lips. He nibble gently on her lower lip before drawing back. Felicity sighed and rested her forehead against his telling him, "No fair distracting me."

"It's my favorite thing to do," he confided.

"And you do it well," she giggled lifting her head so their eyes could meet again. Oliver knew his own pupils were blown wide like hers, as he saw himself reflected in her glasses. He liked how symbolic that was, being able to see the man he'd become, only because she loved him, and her love for him shining forth from her eyes mixed with desire. It was his world, she was his world. "But how can I help if you keep doing it?"

Day Thirty-Seven

"Oliver I don't think you've thought this through," Barry said calmly. He hated the sensible tone that the younger man had managed to maintain during their discussion. Originally Oliver had appreciated that Barry superspeeded from Central to Star City simply because he asked. It was too important a discussion to have over the phone and it would be easier to impart his own sense of desperation in person.

"Believe me I have," he ground out. Oliver could make out the skepticism in his friend's green eyes. Barry could throw out all the dire warnings he wanted about time travel and the repercussion of it, but over month of failures made any consequences that he would face seem worth it. He'd accept anything to stop the painful circle he'd been living in.

Almost anything, he qualified. Traveling back to Tuesday, incurring potentially ominous effects would only be worth it if it meant Felicity lived. He made so many other drastic attempts … breaking up with her, leaving Star City (both together and sending her away alone), outing himself as the Green Arrow, seeking out Constantine's assistance again, killing Damien Darhk, dying in her place … nothing had worked. This – Barry, had to be the answer.

"Have you even considered that time traveling created this loop you've found yourself in?" Barry questioned.

He had briefly reflected that it could be a possibility, but Oliver remembered every detail – both the sublime and horrendous – of every Wednesday he lived through and he knew he hadn't tried this before. Or at least he was certain enough to attempt it. Even if he was wrong, perhaps trying it again would break him out of the rinse and repeat cycle his life had become.

Though it seemed like he had nothing but time, or at least the same twenty-four period, Oliver didn't have the fortitude to speculate on the science or philosophy of what needed to be done. Luckily he and Barry shared a motivating factor. "Either we do this or Felicity dies."

His blunt words caused Barry to gape. It took a full minute for the speedester to process what he said, once he did he exclaimed, "What?"

Oliver felt his jaw flex. Though he hated to repeat the words he'd come to loath because he hadn't been able to stop it and therefore had to relive it over and over again, he spit them out again allowing the torment and bitterness that had been building up in him to seep into his voice. "Felicity dies. I haven't been able to save her on my own. Please Barry," he beseeched clamping a hand hard against the other hero's shoulder, "help me save her."

Because it was for Felicity Barry took the risk.

On his thirty-eighth Wednesday Oliver awoke devoid of hope.

Day Forty-Two

"Did it ever occur to you that it's not about changing your fate but accepting it?" Diggle inquired. John had found him in their new base drinking from the bottle of vodka Anatoly had given him. Instead of marveling in feel of Felicity upon awakening he'd snuck from their bed and come to drown his misery in alcohol. He hadn't been drunk before ten in the morning in nearly nine years. Oliver figured repeatedly watching your world crumble before your very eyes was a valid excuse to drink his troubles away.

He wasn't certain if Dig actually believed his inebriated tirade about living the same day over again or not, but he'd taken the news as he did much everything else, steadily and ready look at it from an angle he hadn't previously considered.

However logical his line of thinking was Oliver could not accept it. He said as much loudly, with so much rage that it made his vocal cords ache. It wasn't just unthinkable, it was unacceptable. If he told Diggle that it was Felicity, always Felicity who ended the day dead, he'd feel the exact same way. They had promised each other when she joined the team that they would protect her. Failing in that was something neither them would be able to tolerate.

He threw the nearly empty bottle across the room. It shattered against the salmon ladder in tiny pieces. "Never," he seethed with renewed determination to change how the day always ended.

Day Sixty-Three

Five minutes. It was only five minutes until this ridiculously long Wednesday would end, until he would wake up from this nightmare he'd been living. He had dared to hope and it had blown up in his face. It would never end. Some cruel whim of fate had decided to torture him for the rest of existence. He would live every day only to fail, over and over and over again.

It would never stop. Never.

Waking up to Felicity was slowly turning from a blessing into a curse and that was the most devastating realization he'd experienced in his life. Even this moment with the bodies of their family laid broken and bloody before them felt less traumatic than that revelation.

None of them it seemed were going to escape death tonight and he didn't have it in him to feel any despair because he'd only be reliving this day again tomorrow and even if he could prevent this ultimate tragedy he'd still end up losing Felicity.

Maybe that was the lesson this infinite hell was he supposed to teach him. No matter what he did or what he changed he was destined to lose her. The thought of it left him hollow and made accepting this fate somehow tolerable.

They were cornered by Damien and his ghosts, with no allies or weapons at their disposal, there was no option left to them – only death. He stood on a precipice of one kind or another his entire life, it seemed fitting that his life would end atop of another, on the ledge of the building that had once carried his family's name.

The whip of the wind was harsh at this height and the sting of it had turned Felicity's cheek red. It was a color he had always associated with her and not just because of the red pen that had been between her lips when he got his first good look at her. Red and all its different hues conveyed warmth, kindness, life, passion … the embodiment of Felicity. It felt like all of that was getting snuffed from this world and had been for over two months, but even at his wits end the feel of Felicity's hand in own steadied him. There was a choice, not a good one mind you, but a choice nonetheless left to make.

"Do you trust me?" he asked his eye boring madly into hers.

Even standing on a literal edge with him in his manic condition Felicity did not hesitate. "Always," she answered with conviction and a watery smile.

As their adversaries moved in on them he told her the only true thing left to him in the face of absolute catastrophe. "I love you."

Her returned sentiment was lost to the wind as they plunged from roof of the building. Down and down and down they fell …

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Thursday

There was an incessant beeping and felt like he had an elephant sitting on his chest with every breath he took. Blinking his eyes open felt like an impossible feat but when he finally managed it Oliver was able to make out the sickly beige walls of Star City General Hospital. To his right Thea was curled in a hospital chair that had been pulled up right next to his bed and one of her hands was cupped over his. The beeping grew more rapid as his panicked eyes searched the room for Felicity. They bounced off Laurel on the couch at the end of his bed and darted to the other hospital bed in the room and that's where he saw her.

She was pale, hooked up to even more machines then he was, but Diggle's large hand was resting against her stomach as he slept in protective crouch over her. It moved with her as she breathed in and out.

He wasn't sure why the sight of her alive cracked his heart while mending it at the same time. Oliver wasn't even certain how they'd ended up in the hospital and frankly it didn't matter. The only thing that did matter, and he somehow knew it was a miraculous sight to behold, was that Felicity was alive.