Chapter Text
The night that Oliver leaves, sleep doesn't come easily. She's sure that she isn't the only one who can't stop staring at their phone. Willing it to ring, for the comforting ping of an incoming text, any sign of life, of his life. She knows he has to travel, he didn't tell them where. Not knowing when or where this fight, this trial, was happening was eating her alive.
Four hours.
Five hours.
The time drags on. It's not a countdown, it's a count-up, which isn't as fun, as there is no anticipated end. There is no expected point of completion.
Her last recollection of the time was nine and a half hours. She fell asleep some time after that.
Felicity dreams of falling, she's so cold, and there is a sick sense of nothing, of emptiness, surrounding her. The light around her seems to swell, and just as suddenly it fades. It fades into darkness. She sees nothing, but feels it when her body slams into hard stone.
She wakes in a sweat, the first rays of sunlight are pouring through her window, lighting the space. Filling the darkness. Dancing across her face.
Oliver has been gone for eleven hours and twenty-seven minutes. According to her dream dictionary, this falling dream means she's either letting go of something or holding on too tight. Right this minute, she isn't sure that she's not doing both.