Well, this is an absolute monster of a one-shot, and it did not start out that way! It kind of came to me as I was walking around Regent's Park yesterday in London and then just took on a life of its own!
There is some POV changing throughout, but it stays in 3rd person and I think I made it pretty easy to keep up with.
Title is from the lyrics to Kelly Clarkson's "Tightrope" which is a beautiful song. Enjoy!
She sees him when she gets on the plane; he's in first class of course. Oliver Queen would never sit in business class with the peasants like her. Not that he knows who she is though, but considering his father is paying for the entire "study abroad" trip for the last two months of senior year, she knows who he is. She'd done quite a bit of research into Robert Queen and his family – not in a creepy way though – when she'd applied for the trip to England.
Most expenses paid, accommodations provided, and an allowance given to every student, all because Oliver Queen had said something to his dad about wanting to go to London. Now, not only was he going to London for two months, but so were twenty of his classmates, her among them.
His girlfriend Laurel, interestingly enough, was not.
She'd been to London once when she was fifteen and she still knew her way around it pretty well. On the weekends when everyone would be jaunting off to Paris, Rome, and Barcelona, she would be wandering happily about the city that she had such fond memories of.
Also, she couldn't afford those trips.
But it was fine with her, because most anywhere in England was a train ride away and hostels were relatively easy to find. Any of those trips she would have to pay for on her own – and she'd busted ass at two jobs all year while juggling school in order to save up – but a short trip to Scotland was included on the itinerary for everyone, along with a few group excursions to Wales, York, and Lincoln.
Since it wasn't an actual study abroad program with another university, three teachers had come along with them to "chaperone" and ostensibly make them do homework. There were no computer classes offered for her, so she was taking one on Tudor history. She wasn't really sure how to feel about that because history had never really been her thing but it sounded dramatic and interesting.
She settles into her seat on the flight from Starling to New York City and then from there to London. They'd generously been allotted the entire next day to sleep and get adjusted to the jet lag. She pulls out her tablet as soon as she's able, checking on the progress of some programs she'd started downloading. After that she plugs her headphones into the armrest and watches Kingsmen and Sound of Music before finally falling asleep.
He doesn't see her until she walks past him at the airport to the gate they have to wait at during their layover. The blonde ponytail tugs at something in his brain until she turns around and he remembers that she's the one in his computer science class that is always given separate assignments. At first he'd thought it was because she wasn't capable of handling the regular courseload and he'd been a little resentful because computers were definitely not his strong suit.
Then he'd seen the lines of code scrolling across her screen and the way her fingers flew across the keyboard and he realized her separate assignments were because she was completely past what they were learning.
He still can't recall her name though.
He doesn't say anything to her as he sits on the same row of benches, instead playing Words with Friends on his phone against Tommy, who should be asleep by now but of course is not.
He ignores the three texts and two missed calls from Laurel.
They fight a lot now, usually because he can't keep his eyes – and hands and mouth – off other women. Last night there was a girl from another school nearby who had come with her friend to his Bon Voyage rager, and Laurel was predictably pissed. She always forgave him though.
He was starting to wonder why, though. His mom did the same thing for his dad and that wasn't exactly a relationship he wanted to emulate.
He checks his watch. Still an hour and a half left to board.
She hadn't been in first class, he knows, which is weird because he was under the impression that everyone on this trip was flying first class. All of his "friends" tend toward the spoiled side, and he wouldn't be surprised if many of them were taking their own private jets rather than flying commercial. His dad had offered to let him use the Queen jet for the flight, but Oliver had declined, preferring instead to get away from his family name and associations, if only for a brief period.
He heads to the ticket counter, and with a few murmured words and gestures, he has upgraded the girl's seat to first class for the New York to London leg.
She steps up to the lady checking boarding passes, and when it's scanned, the woman at the ticket counter calls her over. There's a brief moment of panic until the woman tells her she's been upgraded and hands her a first class boarding pass.
Shocked, all she can do is board the plane and try to find her new seat.
It clicks when she ends up seated next to Oliver Queen in one of those weird pod things that are all facing different ways and have their own decent-sized screens and plenty of legroom. She's still confused though, because she's pretty sure that Oliver Queen has no idea who she is, even though they've had at least five classes together over the last four years.
"I'm guessing I have you to thank for my new seat." It isn't a question, but his head turns toward her and he nods briefly. "Hope you're not expecting anything in return for it." The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them and she flushes while wishing heartily she had a functioning brain-to-mouth filter.
Instead of being offended or shocked, Oliver Queen snorts and she can see a smile playing around his lips.
"I know we've had classes together," he begins slowly, "but I am having the hardest time placing your name."
Of course he is.
"Felicity Smoak."
He snaps his fingers. "That's it. I knew you were the computer genius but I can be really bad with names sometimes."
They're silent as the plane taxis and takes off. She's just pulled out her tablet before he's talking to her again.
"Have you ever been to England?"
"Once, a few years ago. You?"
Oliver Queen shakes his head. "I have not. I've wanted to go since I was little, but whenever my dad went he was too busy with business meetings for me to bother going with him."
"You'll like it."
They don't say anything for the rest of the trip, and he watches one of the Harry Potter movies to pass the time. Felicity alternates between watching something on her own screen and messing with her tablet.
They land in London and meet up with other members of their group, all of whom greet him in an obnoxious way that suggests they've been drinking during their own flights.
They ignore Felicity altogether.
When she starts to walk off to a bench by herself to wait until the coach arrives to take them to their hotel, he surprises himself – and his "friends" – by following her and sitting down next to her. There, while everyone else being rambunctious and drawing dirty looks, they exchange occasional small talk. It isn't until the entire group, teachers included, has assembled, that he realizes that he hasn't texted Laurel like he promised to let her know he's made it safely.
He'll do it when they get to the hotel.
He's pretty sure his father paid more than most people make in ten years in order to reserve the entire floor for their group for the next two months. Everyone has their own rooms – although some people gripe about them not being full suites – with attached bathrooms and room service. They'll be here for the entire time, except for about two weeks, when they'll be in Scotland. During that time their rooms with be opened to other reservations, their items kept in the secure vault there, and then held again for them until they leave the country.
All this for Robert to prove that he does, in fact, love his son.
A wave of nostalgia hits her as they headed into the city. She'd loved being here when she was fifteen, and now she's itching for it to be a weekend already so she can wander about on her own and not be herded around with all the others. She can't wait to ride the tubes again, and has already spoken to one of the teachers about making her own way to group destinations. Despite her familiarity with the city, the teacher had been reluctant to give her permission to ride through the tubes and trains on her own, until she pointed out that that was exactly what she would be doing on the weekends.
After everyone has unloaded their luggage and been checked in, she heads out of the hotel. Everyone else wants to sleep and drink and do nothing, but she's determined to enjoy every possible second of this trip.
"Felicity!"
Surprised, she turns to find Oliver Queen walking quickly down the street after her.
"Where are you going?"
With a shrug, she turns and keeps walking. "Exploring. You're welcome to join me."
Silently, he falls into step next to her and follows her down the street to the nearest tube station, Russell Square.
Forgetting for a second that he's never been to England therefore most likely does not have an Oyster card or any idea of how to travel the tubes, she scans her own card and heads through the gates. She's halfway to the stairs down when she hears her name.
"Felicity?"
Oh, yeah.
She heads back to the gates and points towards the panel on the wall where cards can be purchased and topped-up.
"You can get a card there. They cost £5, and then you should probably put another twenty or so on there to get you by for a couple of days, depending on how much you're gonna use the tube."
Oliver Queen tilts his head curiously, looking at her for all the world like she's speaking a foreign language. With a sigh, she prepares to scan back through and help him through when a security guard takes pity on the both of them and guides him through the process.
While she waits, she pulls her iPod out of her purse and tucks an earbud in her ear, hitting Shuffle. All Time Low's "Don't You Go" starts playing and she drums her fingers against her thigh in time to the music.
Finally, Oliver Queen is through the gates and he gestures for her to lead the way down, tucking his Oyster card into his pocket.
She'd said that she'd been here as a teenager, but he still finds himself being surprised at the ease with which she navigates the tubes. Despite the abundance of open seats, Felicity stands, leaning against one of the doors and flicking through songs on her iPod. Curious, he picks up the earbud dangling in front of her and tucks it into his own ear, holding onto the bar over his head for balance. How she can stand so casually and not be tipping over with the rocking motion kind of amazes him.
Keith Urban's "Cop Car" plays softly in his ear, and he's surprised again. Starling City doesn't really play a whole lot of country music on their radios, so he's not very familiar with it, but the way she's swaying slightly to the beat shows him that she is.
Or it could be the tube making her sway.
After about five minutes, Felicity tugs the earbud out of his ear and turns around. He barely has a chance to read the words on the wall – Leicester Square – before she's off and practically running, weaving through the crowd deftly and heading for a set of escalators.
He follows her as she power walks up them, bypassing all the people standing on the right side, and wishes she would slow down just a second so that he could catch his breath at the top. Instead, she plows on, heading back down a different set of escalators.
He really hopes that she's going to guide him back to the hotel later because otherwise he's going to be completely lost.
They hop on another tube and just as quickly hop off again – Embankment this time – and Felicity charges up the escalators again. This time they scan out of the station and he follows her as she makes a left, a right, another right, and then they're in Trafalgar Square practically before he can blink.
"That's a statue of Horatio Nelson," Felicity points out, "and over there's the National Gallery. Around the corner is the National Portrait Gallery. A few blocks back the way we came is Big Ben and the London Eye and Westminster Abbey, and then a little ways that way," she points somewhere off to the left, "is Buckingham Palace. And over there," she spins and points in another direction and he is now completely turned around and confused, "is Waterstone's. That is my destination for today."
She charges off again, leaving him with only a brief moment to enjoy the excitement that had been all over her face during her directions before he has to hurry to catch up.
By the time they're back at the hotel, she's stopped referring to him as "Oliver Queen" in her mind all the time. Instead, he's just "Oliver" now, and she kind of likes it.
They part ways on the elevator, her stopping at the fourth floor and he continuing up to the sixth. She figures that while today was fun and Oliver is nice, he probably is going to end up rejoining his friends tomorrow for their first excursions out, to Westminster and Big Ben. It's okay though, she tells herself; she didn't have any friends coming with her and so she'd resigned herself to going to all the excursions alone and spending her weekends the same day.
She's completely surprised then, the next morning, when he comes to stand next to her on the wall and picks up her dangling earbud again. She's listening to Bruno Mars, and she can see the surprise on his face.
Oliver walks next to her as they leave as a group and head to King's Cross St Pancras. Even though Russell Square is closer, the instructors want them to see where one of the two main train stations near them is, especially for the ones who might be traveling abroad on weekends.
They all stop to get their Oyster cards, but Oliver leaves with her and follows her down into the tubes again, heading back to pretty much the same place they went yesterday. A teacher calls after them to wait in front of Westminster Abbey, and then they're gone.
Once on the tubes, she skips ahead several songs before settling on Phillip Phillips, leaning against the door in the same way she had yesterday. They get off at Embankment and walk down the street a little before settling into wait.
He can tell that rumors about he and Felicity are already spreading as the rest of the group shows up, and they continue to spread for the next several days as he sticks with her through all of their excursions and frequently eats with her as well. He paid for her a few times too, when the server couldn't or wouldn't split the bill, and he refused to let her pay him back.
Honestly, he doesn't care what they're saying about him. He's got a bit of a reputation back home, he knows. His main concern is Felicity – she's a sweet, smart, extremely nice girl and he doesn't want her getting lumped in with someone as crappy as him.
Unfortunately, whatever whispers are spreading seemed to have reached Laurel and Tommy's ears all the way back in Starling, not that he's surprised: the idle rich are hard to entertain and usually do so by spreading gossip at someone else's expense.
Laurel is pissed, not that he expects anything different. He reads her text messages and listens to her voicemails and then deletes them all, not really in the mood to add drama to what has been a very pleasant trip so far.
He does answer a few of Tommy's messages, although he ignores the requests for pics of "Ollie's hot new toy" and instead tells Tommy that he's made a new friend and that it's all platonic – although sometimes he gets glimpses of Felicity's legs and has decidedly non-platonic feelings – and that no, he will not be giving up her name.
The first weekend she plans to just spend in London, wandering around and enjoying the absence of her fellow travelers. While they're all content to ignore her and she them, they have lovely habits of getting completely wasted at pubs almost every night and raising an almighty ruckus when they come back in. She's contemplated talking to one of the instructors about it, but she gets the feeling it's one of those "billionaires will be billionaires" things.
Everyone leaves to catch flights or trains to Paris or Barcelona – one kid is apparently going all the way to Moscow – and she's left to wander the hotel and surrounding area by herself.
Or, at least, she thinks she is, until she comes back to find Oliver sitting in the hotel café sipping on a mug of either coffee or hot chocolate and clearly waiting for her.
"I thought you would be jaunting off somewhere with your friends," is the first thing that comes out of her mouth, and Oliver looks up at her, surprised. She sits down and curls a leg up under herself. "Not that I mind you being here, I was just wondering why you're not off to Paris or something with all the other rich people. Not that being rich is a bad thing, which I know is what I just made it sound like, it's just that I'm not rich, which you've probably already figured out, so – "
"Felicity."
She snaps her mouth shut and feels the redness overtaking her face.
"I have chronic rambling syndrome."
Oliver smirks and reaches for the extra earbud – he seems to enjoy her music choices and since she's always listening and he's always around, they're always listening together – and replies, "I've noticed."
They're silent for a moment and then Oliver is smirking. "Felicity, if you wanted me to kiss you, you just had to say so."
She's confused for a split second before paying attention to the Kelly Clarkson song playing and then she rolls her eyes and tries not to look like she's thought about that very instance multiple times over the last week.
Liking Oliver Queen, boyfriend of gorgeous Laurel Lance and serial cheater, is asking for heartache.
He studies her as she looks down at her iPod. He may not be the best at reading people, but he can at least tell by the faint pink stain on her cheeks that something about kissing him is still running through her head.
She's not alone there. He's thought about kissing her more in the last week than he should, especially since everyone thinks he's still with Laurel and still in love with her, Laurel included.
Except that if he was really in love with Laurel, he wouldn't be having these thoughts and even feelings about Felicity, right?
The song changes to another by Kelly Clarkson, and Felicity makes a motion like she's going to head upstairs. He nods and removes the earbud – when did he get so good at nonverbal communication, with someone he barely knows – preparing to finish his coffee and head upstairs himself. Felicity's almost out of the café when he has a thought.
"Felicity?"
She turns back around, pushing her glasses back up her nose in a move that's rather adorable – and that's a train of thought that needs to stop – and looks at him carefully.
"What are your plans this weekend?"
Felicity shrugs. "Wandering around, maybe visiting the National Portrait Gallery or something. Might go to Camden Market. Why?"
His brow furrows. "You're not going on any kind of trip or anything?"
She bites her lip and he has to look down at his coffee because he'd really like to bite her lip for her, and he really needs to get himself under control because he has a girlfriend, for Pete's sake.
"Oliver, I can't really afford trips. I had to scrimp and save for most of last year just to make sure I had enough money for food and souvenirs. Trips beyond a short train ride aren't really in my budget."
He tilts his head and can't help but asking, "What trips would you take, if you could?"
Felicity walks back towards him slowly and sits down again, chewing on her lip. He reaches over and picks up the earbud and is greeted by the sounds of Katy Perry.
"Well," she says slowly, seeming to think really hard, "probably one to Barcelona. Calais, on the French coast. Paris would be cool but it's not on my must-see list. Ireland, for sure. Maybe Greece, even though their economy is kind of in the toilet right now." The music changes to Fitz & the Tantrums as she looks at him carefully. "Why?"
He shrugs, trying to act like he doesn't have five different plans going through his head at the moment. "Just curious."
"What about you? Any plans?"
He opens his mouth to answer – although he's not sure what answer he'll give – when his phone rings. He glances at the screen, then shows the ID to Felicity, who takes her iPod and leaves without a word, only a smile and a wave.
"Hey, Laurel."
The girlfriend reminder was just what she needed to get her mind off Oliver. Well, sort of. She's still thinking of him, but more in terms of reminding herself that he's not available and he wouldn't be interested even if he was.
When Oliver shows up at her hotel room door bright and early the next morning, thrusting a plane ticket at her and telling her to pack a bag, she isn't sure what to think.
Not only has he booked them last-minute flights to Calais and gotten them a hotel room with two beds and a large bathroom, he's also booked them return tickets through the Chunnel. In a daze, she packs and follows him outside to the cab that will take them to Heathrow.
Calais is beautiful, as she expected, and she knows the visit will come in handy for her history class, being the last English stronghold of their former French holdings for centuries until Mary Tudor lost it. But what she really enjoys is sitting at cafes with Oliver, listening to the French flow around her and eating some of the best crepes she's ever had in her life.
They take the Chunnel back into London and then they're back at the hotel not long before the rest of their classmates begin to return. One of them asks Oliver what he did for his weekend – she's ignored, as usual – and he replies, "Calais." A few glances skim over her, most likely wondering if she accompanied him, and she stares at the Tudor book she's reading like it's the most fascinating thing she's ever set her eyes on.
Nobody says anything though. Well, at least not to her, but judging by the frustrated phone call she hears Oliver having later with Laurel, someone told her.
"I'm not going to stop being friends with her, Laurel." He rubs his forehead, trying to head off the migraine he can feel coming on.
"Why not?" is the shrill response. "Do you have feelings for her or something?"
He looks up and catches a glimpse of Felicity ordering a hot chocolate – with extra whipped cream and marshmallows, of course – and she shoots him a smile, and all he can say to Laurel is, "Yeah, I think I do." There's only stunned silence on the other end and he sighs. "Look, I think you and I need to call it, at least for now. I still have a month and a half here and I don't know what's going on and this isn't fair to you." He pauses but gets no response and sighs again. "I'm sorry, Laurel."
After a moment, Laurel replies, "Fine. Go have your fun with this Felicity chick, but you and I both know that we will work things out when you get back. I find it hard to believe anyone else would put up with your bullshit."
Then she hangs up, leaving him with the strong desire to ask why she seems so determined to put up with his bullshit.
Felicity sits down across from him with her hot chocolate and mountain of whipped cream. "Everything okay?"
"Laurel and I broke up," he replies with a shrug. Felicity's just leaned down to eat some of the whipped cream off the top and she stops, looking at him.
"Oh no, Oliver, I'm so sorry."
She has whipped cream all over her lower lip, and he doesn't stop himself from reaching over to wipe it off for her. Her face goes crimson as he says, "I'm not."
He's honestly never seen anyone turn quite that red before.
She has to make an excuse to take her hot cocoa and leave after the whole whipped-cream-Oliver-touching-her-lips thing, because wow.
It could be a fluke, she reminds herself. He could just be looking for a rebound – for all she knows, Laurel is the one that did the dumping.
Except that over the next few days, as Oliver sticks closer to her than he has before, frequently resting his hand on her lower back and bending down to whisper in the ear that doesn't have an earbud permanently stuck in it, it doesn't seem like a rebound. It seems like he's testing the waters around her, and she isn't quite sure what to think, especially when he shows up at her door for the second weekend with train tickets to Liverpool and ferry tickets from there to Ireland.
They play twenty questions on the two hour train ride while listening to music – a lot of All Time Low today – and Oliver's hand is always resting on her knee or brushing hair out of her face and just generally making her heart skitter all over the inside of her chest. And the way he's been looking at her…
It's enough to make any girl dream things that would never have entered her mind a mere two weeks ago.
It's also enough to make her wary. She likes Oliver, has been crushing on him since probably the plane ride over, but he did just end what had appeared to be a serious relationship. Did he end things with Laurel just to have a shot at her? Was she just a fun thing he wanted to do – well not do – while overseas? Was he just going to get back together with Laurel as soon as they landed in Starling?
This could all end very badly for her if she wasn't careful.
Ireland was beautiful, but he could honestly say he spent more time watching Felicity take everything in than he did actually looking at stuff himself.
He'd learned a lot about her on the train and ferry rides during their game of twenty questions: single mom, grew up in Las Vegas until a few years before, was going to go to MIT starting in the fall, had a foster brother named Roy that her mom had taken in after his own mom had overdosed on drugs.
Despite all that, he'd felt her pulling away a little during the trip. She'd moved away some of the times he'd gone to touch her, changed the subject if he got a little too flirty, and didn't ramble nearly as much as usual. He wasn't quite sure what had caused the shift, but figured the best way to handle it was to act like he didn't notice her odd behavior and hope it ended soon.
It didn't though, not when they got back to London, not during their next week of excursions with their classmates – many of whom openly stared at the two of them nowadays – not during the next weekend when he took her to Barcelona.
If it continued too much longer, he'd have to actually confront her about it, and that was definitely not something he wanted to do.
He thinks he's figured out the reason when she says, on the flight back from Barcelona, "You know you don't have to do all this for me, Oliver."
He's confused, until she gestures around the first class cabin and continues, "The flights, the trips, the meals, the souvenirs. You don't have to do this for me to keep hanging out with you."
"That's not why I'm doing it," he replies slowly, still not totally sure where she's heading.
"Then why?"
"Because I like seeing you happy. I want you to have the chance to enjoy this trip as much as everyone else is and to go on the trips you want to go on."
Felicity looks away for a second and then glances back at him. "I know it's not what you mean, but it feels a little like charity sometimes, because I'm the only non-trust-fund-baby on this trip."
Stunned, he sits back for a second and Felicity hastens to continue. "I know that's not why you're doing it, and I think you're sweet for doing it, but maybe just…slow down, I guess?"
He looks back at her and sees her chewing her lower lip. With a sigh, he reaches up and uses his thumb to remove it from between her teeth. "I just want you to have the trip you want, the trip you deserve."
Felicity reaches up and grabs his hand, holding it between both of her own. "I know you do, Oliver, and that means more to me than I can say. But maybe let's just stick to England from here on out?"
When he nods, she releases his hand and drops her forehead onto his shoulder. "I'm the worst, most ungrateful person ever, aren't I?"
He chuckles, resting his hand on her knee and feeling relieved when she doesn't scoot away immediately. "No, you're not. If I'd realized all the rich-people stuff was making you uncomfortable, I would have refrained from some of it. You just get used to having money growing up and sometimes it doesn't always sink in that others aren't accustomed to the same lifestyle." He pauses, and Felicity lifts her head, resting her chin on his shoulder now. "Which makes me sound unbelievably spoiled." He chuckles again, and so does she, and the tension melts from the air.
"But seriously, Oliver," Felicity says, and he appreciates that not once has she called him 'Ollie' like everyone else does, "thank you for all of this. I can't say how much I appreciate it."
Unable to help himself, he tilts his head down just a bit and presses a kiss to her forehead. She stiffens momentarily, but relaxes almost instantly.
"Anytime, Felicity, anytime."
After the whole forehead-kiss thing, she starts to let herself believe that whatever Oliver is trying to show her he feels may actually be genuine. Why else would he go to all the trouble of doing all these trips with her and spending so much time with her when he could easily find a rebound in one of the other girls on the trip, most of whom would be more than happy to help him move on?
It could be the thrill of the chase, she thinks to herself as the group disembarks from their train at the top of Mount Snowden in Wales. And it's not like he can't afford the chase, all the gifts and trips he's been showering on her.
The teachers announce that if anyone wants to, they can walk back down the mountain, rather than taking the train. It will be cold, wet, and windy, but totally worth it. Or so they're told.
She joins Oliver and a handful of the other guys who want to go. One other girl accompanies them, but starts complaining after about ten minutes that the rain is making her make-up run down her face.
She can't help but mutter under her breath, "And that's why I hardly bother with the stuff."
Oliver's walking close to her, helping her over some of the trickier spots, and he hears her. He chuckles, and then bends down to whisper in her ear.
"You don't need make-up, you look beautiful without it."
She's never been so grateful that the cold has already made her face an unattractive shade of red, because he can't tell just how flushed she is from those words. He can probably hear her heart pounding loudly though, but she tells herself it's just from the exertion of walking down a mountain.
He wasn't lying when he said she didn't need make-up. Even now, soaked to the bone, her face red and her hair a wet, knotted mess on top of her head, she's more radiant than anything he's ever seen.
He can't help but be aware that he's never felt like this about Laurel or anyone else and he knows there's a pretty good chance he's falling in love with this sweet, nerdy blonde girl.
He's completely okay with that, as long as she's falling in love with him too.
She's totally falling for him.
She doesn't realize it when he makes the comment about her being beautiful; rather, she realizes it when he diligently takes care of her after she catches a cold from the hike down. The teachers weren't wrong though, it was totally worth it.
He brings her steak and ale pie from a pub around the corner, and is constantly checking her temperature and making her drink either water or hot tea. He's also forcing a constant stream of meds down her throat, yet she still can't find it in her to hate him for it.
Because of her cold they don't go anywhere that weekend while everyone else leaves for the Continent or somewhere else in the United Kingdom. Instead they stay in and have a Netflix marathon of Bones and Criminal Minds, and he rolls his eyes every time she drools over Shemar Moore.
Yeah, she's definitely falling for him, and she's doing the stupid thing and letting herself hope that something between them could actually work out.
He can tell they're moving closer together through the last weeks of the program, but he can't help but wish they would move faster. When they get home there's Laurel and graduation and college and all kinds of things to worry about, and he doesn't want them pulled apart. This…thing…between them has been the most real thing in his life in ages and he's terrified to lose it.
So he disregards her wishes to stay in England and instead books them for a trip to Paris for the last weekend, four days before they fly back to Starling. She puts up only the smallest objection and gets on the plane anyways.
He can't bring himself to stop touching her – a hand on her knee or lower back, an arm around her shoulders or even her waist, and he even holds her hand as they're checking into the hotel. She notices something's different, he can tell, because she keeps glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.
She doesn't move away though.
The most challenging part of the trip is going to be dinner on the last night, because he may have done the opposite of what she said she wanted and booked an extremely nice dinner for them.
At the top of the Eiffel Tower.
He also might possibly have perhaps booked her a spa and shopping day.
He honestly doesn't care how mad she is with him for the display of his billionaire-ness as long as she shows up for dinner.
She does, and she's smiling, and he practically falls over when he gets a glimpse of her.
Her hair is long and curled and falls softly over her shoulders, and she's wearing a long flowing dress in a stunning shade of emerald green. He's pretty sure it's his new favorite color.
Her glasses have been replaced with contacts and she's just wearing the simple Celtic cross necklace he bought her in Scotland. She'd fought him on his paying for it – while simultaneously explaining that she's Jewish and the cross just seemed like the perfect Scottish souvenir – but he'd done it anyway when she'd turned around for a second.
"Hi." Felicity's tone is shy and she glances up at him from under her lashes before looking around them at the panoramic view.
"Wow."
Felicity blushes and looks at the ground. "I'm not very good at shopping."
"Could have fooled me," he blurts out, then wants to smack himself. Felicity's blush deepens and she starts toying with the cross.
"You didn't have to do all of this," she says, gesturing to herself and the dinner set up not far from them, a waiter only a few feet away and pretending he's not witnessing a single thing.
Mustering up his courage, he takes a few steps closer to her and cups her cheek with one hand, the other one resting on her face. She bites her lip.
"I wanted to. And I know you said not to do the whole trust-fund-baby display, but I wanted to do something special, because you're special and you've made this trip special, and –"
"And apparently my rambling is contagious," Felicity cuts in with a laugh.
His little speech that he'd been running over in his head is tossed out the window – or over the edge, as it were – as he decides to just go for it, and he leans down to kiss her.
Oliver's lips on hers were certainly not something she was expecting to happen during the course of the night. Hoping for, yes; expecting, no.
But wow was he an incredible kisser. She tries not to think about how he got to be such a good kisser, and it turns out to be really easy to do, since his lips apparently have magical mind-erasing powers.
They're like that for a few moments, pressed so tightly together she's not quite sure where they each end and begin, and when they finally pull apart Oliver has the biggest smile she's ever – and by ever she means the whole two months she's known him – seen him have. Her own cheeks are aching and she knows her face is probably as red as a sunburnt lobster underneath her make-up, but she is, for probably the first time in her life, speechless.
"Shall we?" Oliver asks, gesturing toward the table and the server who is now trying to smother a smile. When she nods, he pulls her in for another brief kiss – or what was supposed to be a brief kiss but instead lasts several heartstopping moments – before leading her by the hand over to the table.
She barely pays attention to whatever they're eating – it's delicious though, whatever it is – and she floats for the rest of the night on Cloud Nine. Well, maybe Cloud Ninety-Nine.
They walk around the deck at the top of the Eiffel Tower after they've eaten, and when her fear of heights threatens to resurface they take the elevator down and walk along the banks of the Seine nearby. There aren't many passersby, but the she can feel the stares and admiring looks of the ones that are out; she and Oliver make quite the picture together and it gives her a warm, fluttery feeling in her chest to think about.
After a few minutes, Oliver pulls an item that turns out to be her iPod out of his pocket and carefully puts one of the earbuds in her ear. He presses 'play' and it's all she can do to keep from crying happy, sappy tears when Paramore's "The Only Exception" plays through it. He pulls her close and ducks his head to kiss her before starting to sway gently with his arms around her waist and hers around his neck.
It's pretty much the perfect date, the perfect night.
She should have known it was far too good to last.
He presses a kiss to Felicity's temple as they're getting their bags out of the taxi and immediately hears the whispers of some of their classmates who have been hanging out outside the hotel.
Doing his best to ignore them, he presses a hand to Felicity's back and steers her into the lobby and towards the elevator. They're in it and the doors have almost shut when one of the girls – Lacey? Kacey? – slides in and presses the button for the floor right below Felicity's. She takes one scathing look at their entwined hands and scoffs.
"You really think this is going to last?" She directs the question at Felicity, and he remembers too late that he's hooked up with this girl sometime in the last year, probably when he was dating Laurel. "You really think you're special and that he won't do to you what he did to Laurel Lance? He's a serial cheater." She shoots him a contemptuous look before turning her attention back to Felicity, who has gone extremely pale. "Chances are, he'll dump you for Lance as soon as his plane touches the ground in Starling."
The doors open at the third floor and she departs, leaving behind a completely stunned pair.
The doors open on the fourth floor – Felicity's floor – just as she murmurs, "Oh my god, she's right." Her hand slips from his grasp and he feels his heart slip into the region of his stomach. She steps out of the elevator and he follows, carrying her duffle bag and really hoping that his ugly dating history isn't about to ruin the best thing ever.
"Felicity?" he asks once she's opened the door to her room, depositing her bag on her bed. She hasn't turned around to face him and she's just standing there, looking out the window and shaking her head.
"I am such an idiot," is what she finally says, and he knows that doesn't bode well for him.
"I am such an idiot," she repeats, turning slowly to face Oliver. He looks apprehensive and a little shocked, and it makes her brain-to-mouth filter fail completely. "Stacey was right! And I can't believe I said that, she's such an airhead, it's probably the first time she's ever been right about anything ever, but that's not the point. She was right here, you are a serial cheater, for all I know you didn't actually break up with Laurel!" She shakes her head and can't bring herself to meet Oliver's eyes again. "No, I believe that you did. But what if we get back to Starling and you see her and you want to be with her again? Where does that leave me? I'll just be that chick that has the entire school talking about her because you had a brief thing with me on a "study abroad" trip. I'm pretty much the other woman even though you're single at the moment, but you and Laurel are always off and on, so when we get back to Starling you'll probably be on again." She's not quite sure when she started pacing but she can't seem to make herself stop.
"Felicity –"
"Are you going to honestly say that you and Laurel reuniting isn't a possibility?" She still can't face him, and she runs a hand through her hair, aggravated. "Plus, even if you don't, even if you want to stay with me – and honestly, there's no way for us to know how we actually feel about each other here, this is all happening in a vacuum that is far from reality – what's to stop you from cheating on me as frequently as you did Laurel? I don't want to be that girl. Laurel's sweet and all but she's an idiot for having forgiven you so many times and –"
"Felicity –"
"I want you to leave," she says abruptly, finally meeting his gaze. "I want you to leave and then leave me alone for the rest of the trip and when we get back to Starling City." Oliver is standing there, his mouth slightly open and looking for all the world like she's kicked his puppy and told him that Christmas is cancelled.
Or like she's broken his heart.
"I can't do this with you, Oliver," she finishes softly. "You're a walking heartache and I can't put myself through that. Plus," she adds with a humorless laugh, "I'm moving to Massachusetts two weeks after we get back to Starling. This was doomed from the start." The last words are so quiet she's pretty much saying them to herself.
"Please leave, Oliver."
Well, what else could he do but leave? He turned, walked out the door, and somehow made his way to his own room.
It's only when he gets there that he realizes he didn't say a word other than her name while she stood and rambled at him. He didn't offer up a single word in defense of himself and whatever relationship they were forming, and honestly what would there have been to say? Yes, he's crazy about her – pretty sure he's already in love with her – but he has been a cheater in the past. He does always go back to Laurel. He is pretty much the worst boyfriend to ever walk the planet, and Felicity deserves a helluva lot better than him.
If only knowing that would make it not hurt.
Oliver abides her wishes and leaves her alone for the remainder of the trip, a fact that escapes the notice of exactly nobody. She and Oliver had been joined at the hip for the entire trip, and now they won't even look at each other and there's not enough make-up in the world to hide her puffy eyes and red nose.
Those are from allergies and the damp weather, of course.
Finally she's in her seat in coach for the first of two flights home, away from the prying eyes and whispers of all the other assholes on the trip. Oliver's on a different flight, which makes her feel only marginally better and she tries to distract herself for the next five hours by watching Harry Potter movies. It helps the smallest bit.
At least, until she gets to her gate for the New York to Starling and sees Oliver sitting there texting on his phone. She turns around before he can see her and walks to the opposite end of the terminal, as far from him as possible, and hides her head behind a magazine.
He boards first, which means of course that she has to walk past him to get to her seat in the middle of the plane.
He sees her, she knows he does, but he looks quickly back out the window and she makes her way down the aisle to her own window seat.
Two more Harry Potter movies make the flight seem quick, but as soon as the plane starts its descent she dreads the moment when they'll inevitably run into each other at baggage claim or somewhere. Life is just that unkind, she's come to accept it.
Except she doesn't even make it to baggage claim – he snags her elbow right outside the terminal and pulls her aside.
"Felicity, please listen to me."
She's looking anywhere but his face, glancing over her shoulder towards the sign for baggage claim.
"Felicity."
She turns to look at him, and he's upset and slightly appeased to notice that she didn't look any better today than she had in the last four days after Paris.
"Oliver, I asked you to leave me alone," she says gently, tugging on her arm a little.
"I know you did, but I just want you to hear me out," he pleads. She stops trying to pull free of his grasp and gives him a 'well what are you waiting for?' look. He takes a deep breath and thinks about what he's planned to say for the entire plane ride. "I know I've been a shitty boyfriend to Laurel and to anyone else I was involved in. I know my dating history is ugly and it doesn't make it seem like things with you will be any different, but they will, Felicity, they will. I don't…I've never felt like this before and I don't want to lose you." Cautiously, he takes a step towards her, the hand that's not holding arm coming up to cup her cheek. "Please."
She seems to relax for a second, leaning into his hand, and it makes him hope.
Only for a second though.
Then she's pulling away, shaking her head. "I want to trust you, Oliver, I do. And I want to try this with you, but…I can't let myself be hurt like that. I'm moving to Massachusetts, Oliver. That's on the other side of the country, and that's not fair to either one of us to try a relationship that far apart. Especially when…" she trails off, but he doesn't need to hear the words to know what she's thinking.
"Especially when there are girls here and Laurel's here, right?" he asks bitterly, releasing her arm. "Glad to know what you think of me."
"Well can you blame me?" Felicity cries, pressing her hands to her face for a second. "You don't have a history as the most faithful guy, or the most trustworthy, and I've only known you two months. I don't want to think like that about you, I want to trust you, but I just…"
"Can't," he finishes her sentence for the second time in three minutes. "Guess that's my answer then."
Moving to Massachusetts had never come at a better time. She needed to put as much distance between her and Starling City – her and Oliver – as possible. She would miss her mom and Roy though.
She's arranged for early move-in to her dorms, and she spends June and July getting familiar with the campus and the town and doing as much coding as possible, anything that will keep her mind off of Oliver. Despite what she tells herself, she's not over him, not the slightest.
Then she gets the phone call from her mom right before school starts.
Oliver's been lost at sea with his father and Sara Lance, and the hope of recovering any of them is minimal.
He'd spent June and July partying with Tommy and their friends from school. He drank more than was probably healthy, but it was the only thing that made losing Felicity less painful, even for a short time.
The brief reunion with Laurel had helped, but his heart wasn't in it and she could tell. It lasted only a few weeks before she walked away and, if he'd heard correctly, into the arms of his best friend.
Not like it mattered anyway, Oliver had an endless string of women to spend his days and nights and weekends with. All brunettes though, no blondes.
Except for when, in a moment of weakness, he asked Laurel's sister Sara to join him on his father's yacht for a cruise to China and back. She was blonde, she'd had a crush on him, and he'd been rather inebriated.
But then the Queen's Gambit sunk and she was lost and his father killed himself and his life went to hell pretty quickly. Well, to Purgatory.
He thought about Felicity a lot on Lian Yu. There was a picture of Laurel in his wallet that had survived somehow, and he stared at that a lot, but her face always turned into Felicity's and he regretted so many things. If he had just been a better boyfriend to Laurel, he might have had a chance with Felicity.
Some nights he's grateful that he was "World's Worst Boyfriend" for several years, because if he hadn't been, if he and Felicity had been together…she would have been the one on the yacht with him, she would be the one in Sara's place, somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.
The thought made his chest ache.
She goes through the first two years in something of a daze, still unable to believe that Oliver's dead and that he took his girlfriend's – ex-girlfriend's, whatever – sister with him on a cruise, which can only mean one thing.
She was right about him, completely right. It makes her want to simultaneously scream and cry, so she settles for screaming into her pillow when her roommate isn't around and then silently crying herself to sleep most nights.
Cooper's the one that snaps her out of her Oliver-funk, and he's the first one to make her think that there might be life after Oliver Queen.
When he makes the decision to return to the island after Russia, he does so without the intention of ever returning to civilization. He's not fit for it anymore, not with the people he's killed and the man he's become. His mother and sister would be ashamed, Tommy would be appalled, and Felicity…
Well, he doesn't let himself think about Felicity a lot anymore.
It's not until he finds his father's weather-worn journal in the bottom of his bag after months of being on Lian Yu again that he remembers his promise to his father.
He has to go back.
When the breaking news comes that Oliver Queen has been found alive on an island in the North China Sea, it's all she can do to keep from fainting in her cubicle at Queen Consolidated.
She'd never even dared to hope that it was possible, but it was true, somehow.
She toyed with the idea of going by his hospital room but decided against it; he should spend his first days back with family, and what were the chances he'd even want to see her again, given how they ended things?
She holds onto that resolve for approximately twenty-six hours, and then she can't stop herself from going to the Queen Manor. Before she can change her mind, she rings the doorbell, then instantly regrets it. She doesn't have time to turn away though, as a middle-aged brunette woman stands before her dressed in a maid's uniform.
"Is Oliver here?" She cringes as soon as the words come out of her mouth. "I mean, I know he's here – not that I'm stalking him or anything – but is he available? Not like single available, but does he have a second to see me? If not, it's okay, I know he just got back and he's probably spending time with his family and you know what, I'm just going to go. I shouldn't have even come, this was a bad idea."
She hasn't made it a step before the housekeeper is calling her inside – practically drags her inside – and walks off with a smile to presumably find Oliver and tell him about the crazy lady who's come to see him. She has to remind herself to breathe as she hears footsteps approaching, especially since it sounds like Oliver's not alone.
"Felicity?"
Her name leaves his lips more like a question mingled with a prayer, and he finds it impossible to believe that she's actually standing in his foyer.
He really wishes his mom, sister, and Tommy weren't all standing right behind him, watching this and no doubt brimming with questions.
Felicity smiles and he sees that her eyes have welled up. She murmurs something – it looks like "you're alive" although he can't hear her – and then she's flying at him, her arms wrapping around his middle and squeezing him tightly.
This is certainly not what he expected, he thinks as he wraps his own arms around her and buries his face in her hair. He hadn't even known she'd returned to Starling City after graduating MIT, and a big piece of him had been afraid that she would still hate him or that she would be involved with someone else. Not that she should be getting involved with him either, considering his mission, but that was something for him to argue with himself about later.
He can feel a damp spot on his shirt and realizes she's crying – hopefully tears of happiness – and that his family is still staring at the two of them, waiting for an explanation.
He turns them slightly and meets his mother's gaze. "I'm going to take her into the study," is all he says before leading her down the hall. He shuts the door behind them and moves her toward the couch.
He just can't make himself let her go long enough to let her sit down.
"You're like a brick wall now," is the first thing she says, and immediately curses herself. It's true though: everyone thought he'd be all emaciated from five years on an island, but instead he's solid muscle. It's kind of incredible.
Oliver chuckles, and she can feel it rumble through his chest and on the top of her head, where his face still seems to be pressed.
Finally, she pulls back. Not far, just enough to look up into his face and take him in.
He wipes a few stray tears off her cheeks as she studies him, seeming to take her in in much the same way.
His hair is shorter and he's no longer clean-shaven. The scruffy look is kind of working for him though, she has to admit. There's the whole muscle-y thing too, and she has to admit to herself that the Oliver standing before her is all man. Any hint of the boyish eighteen-year-old that had stolen her heart five years ago is gone.
There's also a darkness lurking in his eyes that tells her that however those five years were spent on that island, it's a lot worse than anyone can imagine.
They stare at each other for a few moments before he can bring himself to speak.
"I wasn't expecting to see you here. Or at all, actually."
It's not a question, but he can tell she knows what he means.
"I was going to give you more time with your family, but I just couldn't…I couldn't wait." She gives a watery chuckle. "I never got a chance to tell you how sorry I was for everything that happened, and it's all I've thought about for the last five years and I just needed you to know." The tears are falling down her face again and he's forcibly reminded of how much he hates seeing her cry.
"Felicity, it's okay," he murmurs, pressing his forehead against hers. "You weren't wrong about me back then. You have nothing to apologize for."
"But those were my last words to you," she sniffles, and he wipes a few more tears off her cheeks.
"No," he corrects her, "they weren't. I'm here and you're talking to me, so they weren't your last words."
"You know what I mean."
He smiles a little – for the first time since the boat picked him up – and pulls her in close to him again.
"Trust me, Felicity, those words were not what I remembered about you on that island."
She pulls back, her brow furrowed. "You thought about me while you were out there?"
"All the time."
She's not quite sure what to do with that, because it seems to be reawakening feelings she thought she'd moved on from years ago.
Oliver's waiting for her to say something back, she can tell, and his mouth is pressed into a thin line. He was truthful, so now it's her turn.
"I thought about you all the time too," she admits, watching his face carefully. There's a brief twitch at the corners of his lips before his jaw relaxes. He runs a hand up and down her back absently.
"You did?"
She nods. "And not just about the regret over what I said. I wished all the time that you were alive, that things had turned out differently, that I'd been able to tell you –" she cuts herself off, snapping her mouth shut, but not fast enough.
"Tell me what?"
Exhaling and pressing her forehead to his chest, she mutters, "How I felt about you."
The hand on her lower back clenches for a moment before relaxing.
"And how was that?"
Well, might as well lay it all out there. "I was completely crazy about you. I pushed you away because I was afraid you were going to hurt me but in the end I only ended up hurting myself."
"Well," he draws the word out, "you hurt me too." He doesn't say anything else, and she can feel the tears threatening again.
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
"Me too."
They stand there in silence for a few minutes, and he knows his family is just dying of curiosity, probably eavesdropping outside the study door.
He moves to release her, but Felicity holds on tighter, leaning back a little to look at him.
"Please don't hate me for this," she murmurs, and before he can ask what she's talking about, she's stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his.
Kissing Felicity is just as amazing as it was five years ago, even more so actually, since now he knows what it's like to have her and lose her and think he's never going to kiss her again. It gives him an entirely new appreciation for the feeling of her lips moving gently against his, his fingers tunneling into her hair.
"Sorry," she says when she pulls away. "That's probably not what you needed, you just got back from an island and here I am making a move on you, it's totally inappropriate and –"
He presses his lips back to hers eagerly, stopping after a second to tell her, "It's exactly what I needed." He hesitates for a moment before continuing, "I know that I just got back and this is really sudden, but…could you stay here tonight with me? I feel like we have a lot to catch up on and a lot to make up for and…" he trails off, not sure how to phrase it.
Felicity being Felicity though, she understands. "And you don't want to lose anymore time."
He nods, pressing a kiss to her temple.
"I'm not putting out though," Felicity says adamantly, and he almost chokes on air.
"I wasn't expecting you to," is his response. He can't help but chuckle slightly.
Oliver's family appears to have scattered by the time they leave the study, and he leads her quietly up to his room, locking the door behind them.
They stand there and stare at each other for a moment. It's not awkward though, it's more…uncertain. She doesn't know how much she can ask or should ask about the island or about what's going on with them – if whatever is going on is even a good idea considering he's only been home two days – and she doesn't even know where to start with her life.
Oliver makes it easy on her after a moment, leading her to the bed, where she curls up against his chest and wraps an arm around his waist. She feels more comfortable and the words just start flowing like they usually do, punctuated here and there by a chuckle or a question from Oliver.
When she starts to feel sleepy, she reaches off the bed for her purse, rooting around and digging out her iPod. When Oliver sees it, he smiles. She can't help but notice that his smiles aren't the same – and she didn't really expect them to be – they're guarded now where they used to be more open and trusting.
She feels a burning curiosity to know what happened to him on the island, but it's not her place to ask and he'll tell her when he's ready.
Curled up on his chest again, with Four Year Strong yelling in her ear, she falls asleep.
To say he's surprised to have slept through the night without a nightmare would be a massive understatement. On the heels of that revelation comes another – it was really irresponsible (and selfish) of him to ask Felicity to stay with him last night. If he'd had a nightmare like he had the first night…if Felicity had tried to wake him up the same way his mother had and his reaction had been the same…
It didn't bear thinking about.
Instead, he focused on the woman curled up against him, snoring softly. Watching her sleep peacefully gave him another realization.
If he wanted this – wanted her – as much as he thought he did, he had a decision to make: tell her the truth about his plans for the city, or let her go and keep her out of danger.
Felicity stirred gently, burrowing her face into his shoulder, and he knew he wasn't going to let her go.
So he had to tell her. When she woke up an hour later, he did just that, laying everything out on the line for her, holding nothing back. Well, except for all the details about the island. He couldn't corrupt her with that.
Felicity was silent for a long moment, staring at him in what seemed to be disbelief. He had a moment of regret for telling her – he could have had her and he may have just lost her again, for good this time – before the understanding on her face washed it away.
Her tackling him in a hug that tipped him backwards – only because he was extremely caught off guard – was the last reaction he would have thought possible.
Well, second to last, only behind her offer to help. And the look on her face told him it wasn't an offer that he had the option of refusing, despite his objections to including anyone directly or to putting her in danger like that. Unfortunately, her points about her technical skills and ability to help him much better than he could do on his own were as accurate as his arrow shooting.
Oliver coming back from the dead had been something she hadn't dared to dream of. Oliver coming back from the dead with the intent to be a vigilante intending to save the city from those tearing it down was something she couldn't have imagined even if she had been tripping on the worst hallucinogenic.
Of course she was going to help him. There was no place she would rather be than by his side.
There were times when he regretted involving her – when Helena Bertinelli got ahold of her, for starters, and when the Count almost injected her with what would have been a fatal dose of Vertigo – but he could never regret the sliver of happiness that wormed its way into him whenever he came down into the Foundry – he refused to call it the Arrow Cave like she did – and saw her seated at her desk, working furiously away. Every time before he left on a mission, she was the one to secure his mask and pull his hood up, sending him off with a kiss and a warning to be careful or she would kill him.
And while he frequently has doubts about how much he deserves her, she is always quick to silence him with a kiss or a reminder of the good they're doing, of how well they work together and how amazing of a team they are. Those moments remind him that there's nothing he would change – not the study abroad trip, not the five years on the island, not the nights he's stayed up worrying about the danger he's placing her in – since it all brought him back to her and them to this point.
There's nothing he wouldn't do for her – to keep her safe, to keep her happy, for her to know she's loved – and he knows she feels the same about him.
"Felicity."
She turns away from her computers momentarily, looking at him as he places his bow back in its case and walks over to her.
"I love you."
Her smile lights up the room and she tilts her head up towards him. He leans down and presses a kiss to her lips, ignoring Digg's comments in the background about how he doesn't need to see any of this.
"I love you, too."
The end! Seriously, this is the longest one-shot I've ever written and probably the longest I'll ever write again!
Hopefully the POV switching didn't mess with you too much. Let me know what you thought! Much love!