They waited patiently as the operation continued. Felicity had followed Iris to watch from outside the door. Oliver couldn't take it. He couldn't watch.
Every fiber inside of him wanted to drink his pain away. He wanted the aching and the worry to go away.
He sat in the hallway outside the cortex alone. His positions varied from his face being buried in his hands to the back of his head resting on the wall behind him as he tried to catch his breath. The world around him felt so far away. He felt completely detached from anyone and everything he came in contact with. He would feel his phone vibrate in his pocket, he wouldn't pick it up. He'd hear people calling out to him but he wouldn't respond. He couldn't. He was emotionally paralyzed.
He didn't want to be in the world around him.
Caitlin, who had been leading the procedure, came from the room to speak with Oliver privately. When he saw her, he immediately shot up. As if his trance were a bubble and she took a pin to it. He knew that she carried news. She had already told the others about his predicament.
"We got the bullet out." Caitlin told him with only partial assurance. "But he lost so much blood from both wounds, we don't know if his body is going to be able to heal the way it needs to."
She takes a deep breath. "And even if the wounds heal, the bullet fragments migrated to the lumbar of his spine and we had to remove them. Another thing we are unsure will heal. We cannot know exactly how or if his abilities will work."
He bites his bottom lip in an attempt to fight the cries trying to leave his system. Any kind of hope felt as if it was slowly fading away. Barry would either not wake up or he would wake up with the inability to walk, quite possibly ever again.
"Caitlin," Oliver began desperately. "Take him to the hospital. Maybe they'll know what do."
Caitlin took a deep breath, grabbing Oliver's arm and leading him to door that led into the med-bay. Oliver gets his first look at Barry through the small rectangular window that was on the door-- he was helpless. He immediately turns his head back to her. Caitlin musters up a telling smile. "They cannot treat him like we can."
"They have more doctors. More specialists who can give second opinions-" Oliver stopped to swallow the lump that rested in his throat. He felt his voice become weaker. "Please Caitlin."
Caitlin places her hand on his shoulder with assurance. "Oliver, we know and understand what goes on in his body more than anyone. We don't have the time to explain his physiology to every doctor at that hospital."
"We care about him too." Caitlin continues soothingly, taking notice of the sheer fear in Oliver's face. "We are doing everything we can to make sure he doesn't leave us."
"So what now?" Oliver asks as he stares at Barry through the window pane.
"It's a waiting game," Caitlin tells him. "We are doing what we can to wake him up. But we don't know how long that will take.
This isn't our first time waking Barry up from a coma." She tells him with an assuring smile. "And if the speedforce wasn't working inside of him, he'd be dead right now. So it's doing something."
He weakly grins at her as she pats his arm lightly before walking out of the cortex. He takes a deep breath as he begins to walk towards the med bay. Barry lays motionless on a bed. Wires and tubes run from areas on his chest and facial parts. He looks at peace. He looks as if he is thousands of miles away from this world.
For the first time since he found out about the accident, tears steadily fell down Oliver's cheeks.
He's already lost him.
"Do you remember the first time we met, Ollie?" Barry asks inquisitively. He places a potato chip in between his teeth, crunching loudly, causing Oliver to cringe at the sound. He speaks through chewing. "And I was catastrophically late."
Oliver laughs. "I do." He bites his lip before taking a sip of the glass of water that rested on the nightstand next to the bed. "You haven't really grown out of that lack of punctuality phase have you?"
"Hey," Barry becomes mockingly defensive. "I'm still ten times better now than I was before I got my speed."
Oliver shakes his head. "You are literally the fastest man alive yet you cannot make it to a date on time."
"Eh," Barry answers questioningly. He squints his eyes in fake concentration while batting his head side to side. "Is this really a date though?"
"I said be at my place at seven and you got here at seven thirty." Oliver replies. "It doesn't matter what you call it." He smirks while trying to hold back a smile. "You were still late as hell."
Barry had recently suggested that he would run to Star City more often to spend time with Oliver. It was an escape from his everyday activities while also serving as a way to give Oliver company and spend more time with him. This had been one of the first nights he came.
"Hey, I was on time when I saved your life." Barry suggests, reminiscing on the time he put rat poisoning in Oliver in order to flush out a deadly chemical tormenting his body. This encounter ultimately began the deep connection that would follow them for the next six years, leading them to the positions they found themselves in.
Oliver propped himself up on his elbow, staring upon Barry with a large grin across his face. "You were."
"Aren't you grateful for that?" Barry asks, inching closer to Oliver.
Oliver sets his fingers in between Barry's, pulling his hand to rest on his own him. "I'll always be grateful for that." He deviates his attention from Barry, looking into the sheets directly below him. "I hope you know, you've saved me twice, Barry."
"What does that mean?"
"Right before we first started this," Oliver begins with a deep breath. "You know what kind of place I was in. Alcoholism was taking over me. I was allowing it to.
But then we decided to give this a try. And I jumped out of that hole I was falling into. Because of you. You saved me from myself."
Barry feels tears begin to set in his eyes as he takes a firmer grasp on Oliver's hand. He pulls it to his lips and lightly pecks his knuckle. "You deserved better than to treat yourself like that."
Oliver smiles. "Thank you for showing me what I deserved."
"I'm here." He tells him stately. He moves his face towards Oliver, placing his lips in between his and kissing them softly. "You've got me."
"You've got me."
The words echo in Oliver's head as he hopelessly stares at the man who lays still on the bed in front of him. The memory rolls on but feels as if it happened in another life. He feels his emotions take over as he inches closer to the bed.
"Not you, Barry." His words come out strained as he speaks through sobs. He kneels next to the bed, clasping Barry's limp hand between his own and gripping it tightly. He pulls it to his forehead. "This wasn't supposed to happen to you."
A breathing tube sits in between Barry's lips. His eyes are peacefully shut. A monitor ticks at a steady beat, signifying his beating heart. He squeezes Barry's hand tighter as his tears fall quicker. He feels his lips quiver as his hands tremble. "Why did this happen to you?"
The feeling of emptiness in Oliver's heart that existed before the wedding weekend returned except in a different form. Instead of longing for someone he couldn't have, he longed for someone he had. He longed for someone he loved to wake up. To smile at him. To talk to him. To return to him.
He brought Barry's hand to his chest. His bottom lip slipped from his top as it quakes through sobs. "Open your eyes, Barry. Please."
He takes a deep breath before continuing to speak softly. He loosens his grip on Barry's hand before rubbing the top of it gently. "I need you. I can't do any of this without you."
His tone suddenly becomes louder and more desperate. "Come back to me!"
Barry stays silent. Oliver brings his hand back to his own forehead, continuing to cry to himself. His condition had not improved. He remained comatose as he had been for the last two days. Hope was beginning to be lost for all involved. If Barry's capabilities to heal quickly were going to make any difference in his state, they would have acted by now.
As Oliver rests his head on his and Barry's hands, he takes deep breaths. He tries to calm himself down yet the sobs overtake him. He muffled them as much as he could, yet his weeps were audible throughout the hollow room.
He had cried very minimal tears throughout the past few days. Sometimes he would think of a memory that would spark a couple to fall. Sometimes he got so deep into pessimism, deep into a reality that had yet to exist that some tears would set in his eyelids.
Oliver, in the recent years of his life, hadn't been much of a crier, or a weeper one could say. The world had thrown so much pain at him that he learned to channel his sadness and hurt in mechanisms that didn't involve tears. Drinking was one of those things. But sometimes the pain would simply be so much that it was numbing.
But there he sat, openly weeping for the man who had his heart. It wasn't just sadness that overcame him— it was desperation, hopelessness, fear, and a longing to be able to talk to someone he couldn't. He couldn't get a grasp on his emotions. So in that moment, he just let them all out.
He continued to rest his head on his own hand that was entangled with Barry's. He heard footsteps walking towards him. A hand rested kindly on his back.
"Hey," the soft voice greeted. He turns his head to a warm smile aimed towards him. It was Iris. He shoots her a half-assed smile before bringing his attention back to Barry. She pulls up a chair next to Oliver, gently patting his thigh as she sat. "I figured we should talk."
"I'm not so sure I have the energy." Oliver tells her with frailty, not dividing his stare.
"You have hardly spoken a word in days," Iris says worriedly.
"It's because I have none." Oliver looks at her, swallowing the growing lump in his throat. Keep it together. He presses his trembling lips together and closes his eyes.
"It's okay to cry, Oliver." Iris says, placing her hand on his shoulder. "You don't have to keep it in. You don't have to keep any of this in."
Oliver lets out a breathy laugh of disbelief while shaking his head. "You should know I've been crying for the past hour." She looks at him sympathetically. She rubs the area of his shoulder she had been touching. "Every time I let out a tear, it makes all of this feel more real. I don't want it to be real."
"But it is," Iris tells him stately. "Even as much as we wish it wasn't, it's real."
His bottom lip falls as a cry leaves his throat. His breath was shaky as tears began to fall down his cheeks. "I can't accept that."
"You know I broke down crying the minute my father called me and told me he was shot?" Iris' emotions mirror Oliver's. "I've spent the last three days trying to accept it. It's the hardest thing I've had to do. You know what's been on my mind though?" Oliver looks at her inquisitively.
"Three years ago, when Felicity and your team thought you were dead. . ." Iris brought her attention to the man laying on the bed in front of them. "She called Barry. She said that your blood had been found on some assasin's sword. She told him you were gone."
Oliver shakes his head at the memory with a scoffing laugh. "Ra's Al Guhl took a sword through my chest and kicked me off a mountain."
Iris nods. "But Barry. . He had faith that you'd come back. He believed in you. Even though your entire team and our team thought you were gone."
Oliver let outs a smile as tears continued to fall. "He's always believed in me."
Iris brought her attention back to Oliver. She looked at him stately. "He will always believe in you."
"What are you trying to tell me here?" Oliver questions.
"Things are looking bleak right now, Oliver." Iris tells him bluntly. "We don't know if he's going to wake up or how he will be if he does. I want to have faith that he will. I really do." She tries to contain the cries that are begging to come about. "But I cant right now. And I believe that maybe you can."
"Why me?"
"Because," she begins. "Like you said, he has always believed in you. You owe it to him to have that kind of faith in him."
Oliver shoots her a smile. "Barry's lucky to have you."
"And he's lucky to have you." She returns the gesture, patting his leg lightly. "Now go get some rest. If he wakes up, you'll be the first to know."
Oliver looks at Barry's quiet and tranquil expressions. He brings his hand to his lips, kissing it gently before releasing it to rest beside Barry's hip. He leans back in his chair.
"I'll rest right here."