"I'm coming with you," Felicity said with finality to Oliver's retreating back.
"Felicity—" he attempted futilely, already knowing it wasn't worth arguing. He'd been engaged to this woman, after all. He knew better than to assume she'd change her mind with enough pleading.
"Just because we aren't together doesn't mean you have to do this alone," She said gently. Oliver sighed. "And I've already chartered the company jet, Mr. Dennis is furious, and I booked us a room—rooms—" she emphasized. "With points."
"Should I even try and talk you out of this?" He asked without conviction, already knowing the answer to his pointless question.
"No." She said with a grin. "You met my mother. Same DNA." With that she strolled right past him, leaving him to shake his head at her antics before following her out of the bunker.

The first part of their journey was shrouded in a tense and polite silence. Oliver sat on one side of the plane, staring out the small port window at the darkness below, specked with yellow lights here and there. Hub City wasn't far by air, but the palpable tension between he and his travel mate made it feel a lot longer than an hour. Felicity, meanwhile, was seated near the front of the vessel, typing away furiously on her tablet. Answering emails and tending to CEO business, no doubt, Oliver thought as his eyes lingered on her for a moment too long. She looked up just in time to catch his gaze and he hastily busied himself with looking out the window into the abyss again.

Upon landing they were greeted with a rental car and they loaded their bags into the trunk, shoulder to shoulder, before buckling into the front seats and starting off to the hotel Felicity had booked them. Now it was her turn to stare out the window, her mind racing to find any answer to the problems before them. She absent-mindedly moved her hand from her lap to the center console, brushing Oliver's hand already resting there. They both jumped at the sudden and unexpected contact but didn't turn to look at each other. When Oliver moved to allow Felicity to occupy the space, she stopped him by resting her hand on top of his and stroked fingers with her thumb. Oliver's breath caught in his throat for a moment before he relaxed into her ministrations, so painfully familiar but incredibly welcome.

For the time being it felt like they were normal again; as though they had picked up where they left off in their travels in the beginning of their relationship.

"Oliver—"
"Felicity—"

The both began at once. They stopped and looked at each other, laughing.

"I missed this," Felicity admitted.
"So much," agreed Oliver.
"I was so afraid I'd ruined any chance of us being friends still, after everything," Felicity said in a shaky voice. Oliver looked shocked.
"What do you mean, ruined?" he asked.
"I let my pain and anger get the best of me," she said. "The way I treated you was so…cruel." She spat out the word and he could hear the shame in her voice. "I'm so sorry." She caught his eye and held his gaze for a moment, trying to will him to believe her. "During our…"wedding"…you just poured your heart out to me. Even after I was so snarky and sarcastic. I cried myself to sleep for a week over that." Oliver felt a pang strike his heart over the idea of the love of his life crying—over him—without comfort.

"Felicity, I could never fault you for the way you were feeling after everything with William. And then to force you to go through with that fake wedding to trap Cupid? I never really considered how hard it might be for you to have to put on that dress and walk down the aisle, even though it was killing me inside to do it. It wasn't fair to you. A few snarky remarks was the least I deserved that day," he assured her.

"But you were already feeling horrible," Felicity said. "You didn't deserve to be kicked while you were down."

"I appreciate that. But I still don't blame you for it," he promised. "And for what it's worth, watching you walk—actually walk down the aisle like you'd hoped you could—it was incredible!" He said proudly. "I am so in awe of your strength, Felicity. You are and always have been the strongest person I know." She smiled over at him and nodded.

"I am pretty bad ass, huh?" She grinned. Oliver chuckled, feeling more at peace than he had since the whole debacle with William had begun. Felicity squeezed his hand tightly as they pulled up to the hotel entrance. "I will go and get us checked in if you want to grab our bags?" She offered. He agreed and she headed inside to the lobby while he parked the car and unloaded the trunk.

He found her inside near the elevators looking guilty.
"So…" she began, holding up a small white envelope adorned with the hotel's logo. "I told you I booked us rooms, plural, with points."
"Yes, and?"
"Yes. And…apparently they double-booked us. They only have one room, singular, available. One…king sized bed…room." She trailed off. Oliver swallowed thickly and nodded, biting down on his lips.
"Okay. Well right now we have some bigger problems to solve so…we can worry about that one later." Felicity nodded and proceeded to push the up arrow for the elevator.
"Roger that," she agreed.

They took the elevator to the top floor and Felicity let them into the room. Oliver set their bags on the single bed the room had to offer while Felicity set about gathering her makeup and the garment bag containing her dress for the evening.
"I'm going to head down the hall for some ice," Oliver announced. Felicity nodded in acknowledgement and Oliver slipped the room key into his pocket before absconding into the hallway.

Felicity decided to use her time alone to change from her traveling clothes of jeans and a pink top into the long fuchsia gown she'd brought with for their evening at the casino. She'd be lying to herself if she said her choice in attire wasn't intentional. With its plunging neckline and the way it hugged her body in all the right places, the dress was absolutely meant for Oliver's eyes. She didn't want to admit it, but part of her still desperately yearned to take back everything she had said since the moment she set her engagement ring on their dining room table. The only thing keeping her from begging him to take her back was her pride. That and the burning desire she had to never be like her mother and stay with a man to her own detriment.
Felicity was mulling this over as she removed her pants, top and bra and folded everything neatly, setting it atop the hotel room's desk. She was laying out the garment bag on the bed and leaning down to unzip it when she heard the door click open and Oliver yelp simultaneously. Felicity instinctively wrapped her arm around her chest and looked up to see him, red-faced and embarrassed with a hand covering his eyes.
"I'm so sorry," Oliver blurted out. "I forgot the ice bucket. Just came back to grab it." Felicity swiped the bucket off the desk with her free hand and shoved it into the hand Oliver wasn't using to cover his face.
"It's no big deal. It's not like you've never seen me—"
"I'm just going to…go do the…do the thing with the ice," Oliver sputtered, turning quickly to exit. On the other side of the closed door he took a moment to compose himself, leaning against the wall and taking a deep breath. He willed himself to calm down and did his best to not focus on the image now burned into his eyelids every time he closed them. Felicity, standing, bent over the bed in nothing but a pair of black lace panties. It wasn't as though similar scenes hadn't been on a continuous loop in his head every night since shortly after their break-up. The loft was lonely, especially tossing and turning in the bed he had shared with her. The bunker wasn't any better. He wasn't above doing what he needed to do. But what he wasn't prepared for was just how hard seeing her that way again would hit him. Why had he allowed her to come with him? This was pure torture. He took one last deep breath and decided to make one last attempt at ice-gathering. He'd have to remember to knock before letting himself into the room when he got back this time.

….

It was nearly dawn when they arrived back outside their hotel room door. Oliver was beaten down, exhausted by his failure to grasp the magic lessons Esrin Fortuna had offered. Reliving all of his worst moments in vivid color had done absolutely nothing for his confidence either, though the following talk with Felicity at the casino's bar had been enlightening to say the least.

When she had stood before him after their fake wedding and told him she couldn't marry him she said it was because she didn't believe he could ever change. That she just knew he would always be unable to trust her and that he'd always revert back to the man he'd learnt to be on Lian Yu all those years ago. This woman who had spent years insisting she believed in him when no one else had. Who had fought for him and promised her life to him and taken a bullet to the spine simply because she loved him—she had finally given up on him. It truly was more than he could bear.

But then tonight in the casino's bar she admitted that she had been wrong. Her reaction had come from a place of deep, soul-crushing pain not unlike the pain he felt from losing her. She felt hurt and betrayed by the one person who never should have made her feel that way. She insisted that she knew now that people can change. That she believed he had a light within him that could overrun the darkness.

So despite the fear he was feeling about returning to Star City no wiser in the ways of magic than he had been when he left, he did feel something within him that hadn't been there before their trip to Hub City. Knowing that perhaps he was redeemable in Felicity's eyes after all made all the difference. It was this thought which occupied his mind as the two of them wearily let themselves into their room to shed their elegant eveningwear and don pajamas instead.

It was when Felicity padded out of the bathroom from brushing her teeth that they remembered they only had one bed between them.

"Go ahead," Oliver said, pulling the covers back as an invitation for Felicity to climb in. "I can make a bed on the floor over here with some extra blankets." Felicity almost looked hurt when she looked up at him, her blue eyes framed by her glasses once again.

"It's a big bed, Oliver. But if you aren't comfortable sharing I can—"

"Me? I just assumed you wouldn't want—"

"No! Not at all. Please," she insisted, the last word coming out as more of a soft plea than anything. She touched his bare arm gently and looked into his eyes. "Please?" Oliver nodded and Felicity took that as her cue to climb into the soft bed, sinking deeply into the down pillow with a heavy sigh. Oliver circled around to the other side of the bed and gingerly climbed under the covers himself, trying to keep a respectable distance so Felicity wouldn't feel uncomfortable. He made sure to lay with his back facing her, hugging the very edge of the huge bed they occupied. When he closed his eyes all he could see was the plunging neckline of her dress and the way she had moved in it that night, her hips swaying. Driving him mad in a way only she could. The image of her nearly nude and bent over this very bed replayed in his head next. Her smooth, milky skin marred slightly by several of her very own scars, courtesy of Damien Darhk.

Darhk. He had tried so hard to take from Oliver the only bit of light he had left in him. But in the end it was the darkness within Oliver himself that had driven her away from him.

"Oliver?" Felicity mumbled sleepily, reaching her hand out and pulling on his arm the way she used to after the shooting, when she was in need of his arms around her at night to keep the nightmares at bay. Oliver turned his body to face her and found her nose to nose with him, her head nearly resting on his pillow. Her beautiful eyes were cloudy with exhaustion.

"Hey, " he smiled softly. "You okay?" Felicity returned his sleepy smile and slowly reached to cup his cheek with her hand. Oliver closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. It hurt so much to have her right here and not have her, but he was so thankful for any little moment with her that he didn't want to do anything to jeopardize it.

"Talk to me," Felicity pleaded. "What happened down there tonight? When she used the magic on you."
"I saw…Tommy, dying in the earthquake. And I watched my parents die all over again. I saw all the people I've killed…I saw you—" he stopped abruptly. He hadn't meant to share that one.
"You saw me what?" Felicity asked, her brows furrowed and her eyes full of concern.
"Setting the ring on the table," he whispered. "The last thing I saw was the same scene I've been reliving over and over again for weeks. It wasn't standing by in the ER helplessly while they tried to save you or you in Darhk's gas chamber or being threatened by the Count or any of the many, many times I've almost lost you to someone else. It was the time I lost you because I didn't fight for you. I could have prevented you from walking away and I didn't."
"Oliver, nothing you could have done or said in that moment would have kept me there," Felicity said.
"Maybe not…but I should have tried. I should have tried and I didn't. I should have come after you. I should have begged and pleaded and done whatever it took-"
"I told you I needed space and you gave me space," Felicity insisted. "The problem was that you didn't fight for me before I left, not that you didn't chase me once I was gone." Oliver nodded.
"You're right."
"Oliver," she said, taking a deep breath as though she was ready to say something that had been weighing on her for a very long time. "I love you. I. Love. You." She emphasized each word. "And please note that each time I've told you that in the last few weeks it has been in present tense," she added. Oliver let out a shuddering sigh and cracked a small smile at hearing those words. "But you need to figure out how to trust. How to not be so afraid that the people you love will leave you. And I know that sounds counter-intuitive coming from me after I broke your heart and gave your ring back- but even though we aren't together right now I am still. Here. I will always be here when you need me… because I will always love you. Just like Laurel and Sara were there for you. And just like John and Thea will be there. When you're struggling with darkness we will be here. No matter what."

Felicity stroked Oliver's cheek with her thumb gently, but he didn't respond as he mulled over her words, his eyes closed for a moment. "You said you were sure that there was too much darkness in you to beat Damien Darhk. That I was your light, and I always had been. But I don't believe that," Felicity said, shaking her head. "I only ever saw in you what you couldn't see yourself." Oliver opened his eyes again and looked into Felicity's, which were brimming with unshed tears. "I never could have brought you to the light if it wasn't inside of you to begin with. You'd have already been too far gone to be saved if that was the case." Oliver reached up to cover Felicity's hand with his own, entwining their fingers against his cheek. "I guess what I'm trying to say here," she continued, "is that you are a good man. And despite this monster you think you are, there are people in your life who know you better than that. Who know you are so much more than that." She smiled, though a single tear escaped the corner of her eye and left a path down her cheek before plopping onto her pillow. "You are so loved, Oliver Queen. But you need to believe that for yourself before you have any chance of defeating Darhk."

"Now that," Oliver said with a chuckle, "Was a good speech." Felicity laughed and wiped away her tears before pulling him against her so his head could rest on her chest, her arms wrapping around him tightly and twisting in his hair. She planted a soft kiss on his forehead and he melted into her embrace. He finally knew what he had to do to defeat Damien Darhk. And as usual Felicity was his saving grace.