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For the longest time Oliver Queen resigned himself to a life filled with nightmares. During his time on the island, followed by Hong Kong and Russia, his sleep was fitful and restless, filled with terrible dreams that would make him almost afraid of falling back asleep. The dreams followed him all the way to Starling City.
After coming home, everyone tiptoed around him, afraid of saying something that would take him back to his years of isolation. But they all had one thing to say: “It’s okay now. You’re home.”
What they didn’t realize was that Starling City felt as foreign to him as the island had on the first day he washed ashore.
-----
Nightmares were commonplace for him. He no longer fought them, no longer did everything in his capabilities to avoid them. They were a part of his routine by now: exercise, patrol, exercise, go over the notebook, brush his teeth, lay down to sleep, then wake up a couple of hours later drenched in sweat from the latest nightmare.
And repeat.
-----
The first time he slept and didn’t have a nightmare was the night after he visited a certain IT girl recommended by his stepfather. Instead of the phantom memory of pain sleep always gifted him, he got brief flashes of a red pen, a dangling ponytail, and a smile so bright it almost made his eyes hurt.
Nevertheless, the shock from not having a nightmare woke him up. He lay down on his bed at the Queen Mansion, chest heaving from labored breaths, eyes clouded over with sleep and his mind desperate to hold on to the barest hint of the memory of his dream.
-----
The nightmares didn’t completely disappear, but they became a less frequent nightly visitor. Oliver still jerked up in bed, throat burning with unshed tears and fists clenched by his sides. He still got moments in his day when a too-loud sound would make him freeze, instincts screaming at him to protect himself.
But with those awful moments came good ones. He’d catch himself humming a tune, or pass by a mirror and pause when he saw that his reflection was smiling. There were times when he felt so at peace down at the foundry that he’d sit down, tilt his head back, and just breathe.
It was all thanks to one bright fixture in his life. Felicity Smoak.
-----
She first noticed the dark circles under his eyes five weeks into their partnership. Although the IT girl was still sometimes timid around him, shyness taking over and making her stumble over her words, Felicity was slowly but surely carving a place for herself on the team.
It was a quiet night down in the foundry when she brought it up. Spinning on her computer chair, Felicity twirled a strand of her blonde hair, her bright lips pursing in thought.
“You like tea, right?”
Startled at that non-sequitur, Oliver looked up from where he was sharpening his arrow-heads. Felicity was gazing steadily at him, eyes alight with curiosity.
“Tea?” he echoed.
She nodded enthusiastically. “I’ve seen those leaves you have stashed in your super-secret, no-one-but-you-ever-gets-to-touch-it wooden box.”
Oliver almost smiled. “Those are for medicinal purposes.”
Felicity rolled her eyes. “Stillll. Do you like tea?”
Oliver decided to indulge her, curious as to where she was going. “Sure. Why do you ask?”
Felicity stopped spinning and straightened up in her chair. “I love tea. And coffee too. Coffee is life. You wouldn’t want to see me in the morning without coffee, let me tell you.” Felicity flushed then stammered on, “Not that you would ever have cause to see that early in the morning because, well, reasons.”
Oliver outright grinned but decided to have mercy on her. “Tea?” he prompted.
Felicity lighted up. “Yes! Tea! Well, I especially love Chamomile tea. I’ve read that it really helps calm you down and unwind you from a long, stressful day. Pretty useful for our line of work, don’t you think?”
Oliver stilled, feeling her knowing gaze steady on his face. Felicity wasn’t stupid – far from it, she was the smartest one out of their trio. She was observant and she picked up on a lot – such as the fact that he wasn’t sleeping well. But she wasn’t going to outright call him out on it, knowing his reaction would be to shut down and brush away her concerns. Instead, she brought up the topic and a way to help in in such a manner that made it seem like small-talk and everyday conversation.
He knew that he could close the topic right now and she would let him. She wouldn’t push him when she knew he wasn’t ready. He knew that, if he asked, Felicity would let it go (for now), smile at him, then spin back around to work on her computers.
She treated him so differently from everyone else and he yearned for that. Ever since he came back to the city, everyone wanted him to talk and let his emotions out. His mother probed him about the past five years with carefully crafted questions and concern in her eyes. Thea would bluntly bring things up, questions so suddenly thrown out at him from nowhere that his heart would seize up and panic would overtake him. Laurel looked at him with piercing, unyielding eyes, determined to know what happened to him, to her sister. She wanted answers when Oliver could barely think of those memories without breaking out in a sweat. Even Diggle, his brother-in-arms, sometimes demanded answers and background information before he acquiesced to a mission.
But not Felicity. Never Felicity. She didn’t push for information, she didn’t expect answers. She was happy to live in the here and now, not needing details of his past to trust him in the present. She made Oliver feel like he was home, like he could finally move on from the hell that was the past five years and forge on to make something better and, dare he hope it, happier with his life. The others sometimes made him feel like he was back on that lifeboat, with the corpse of his father haunting him, the angry storm raging around him. While they were the endless sea that trapped him, Felicity was the beacon that guided him to shore, with her bright personality, ever-present smile, and the love she poured into everything she touched.
Oliver felt a sudden rush of warmth for the blonde IT girl. Sometimes he regretted recruiting her, bringing her into his world full of darkness and pain and a never-ending battle. It kept him up at night, thinking of all the ways he could fail her and Diggle, of all the ways he might be unable to protect them. Those thoughts always left him feeling cold and miserable.
But then he would come down to the foundry and see the place brightened up by a plant in the corner, or hear soft music crooning from her speakers, or see her brightly-dressed clothes that brought color to the dreary headquarters, and he would shake his head fondly and realize how much Felicity had improved all their lives. Especially his.
On those days, he couldn’t help but feel such a rush of gratitude for Felicity Smoak. Gratitude, affection, and a feeling so bone-deep and pure that he shied away from exploring it.
Not yet. Too soon.
Snapping back to the present, Oliver quirked an eyebrow at Felicity, a smile tugging up the corners of his lips. “Chamomile tea, you say?”
Felicity grinned back at him, smile mischievous and relief stark in her eyes. “It’ll work wonders,” she replied softly.
She spun back around to face her computers, fingers flying over the keyboard. Oliver watched her for a moment, observed the gentle curve of her neck, the ease with which she commanded the computers, the intense focus she had while she worked.
Felicity Smoak, he thought, was someone special.
Not yet.
Not yet. But maybe someday.