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It's the Only Truth Sometimes

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He couldn't tell you exactly when it happened. Because, honestly? Oliver wasn't even sure when his I.T. girl extraordinaire, Felicity Smoak, became to mean so much to him.

Sometimes it felt almost as if Oliver woke up one morning and realized he wouldn't be able to truly live without Felicity's vibrant personality—those long babbles where she goes far off topic when nervous or the times where the blond makes accidental innuendos and silently curses herself. Or, maybe, it was also the ever changing colors of lipstick that brought out just how kissable her pert mouth looked. He couldn't overlook how adorable Felicity often looked when successful in whatever current endeavor she'd been working on for him.

More or less, he thinks it's all of it he couldn't imagine gone from his life, as if she'd vanished. Oliver simply put could not, would not, live without her. It hadn't been planned nor expected; but somewhere along the way that quirky blond I.T. girl became the one who made him feel alive. That without ever really realizing it Felicity had pulled him from the darkness lingering from the years on the island time and time again, made him truly laugh and smile when Oliver wanted nothing more than to return to his dark corner in the foundry.

However, Oliver wasn't completely oblivious, even blinded by so-called love for Laurel, he felt the instant chemistry between Felicity and himself the first time they'd met. Found it refreshing that within moments of meeting him she wasn't buying the bullshit he was selling. Nor had Felicity ever believed completely in his Oliver-Queen-playboy mask. The attraction had always been there under the surface, but the rest hadn't come until later, though the start of it had begun on that day also.

His emotional attachment to Felicity is strong, Oliver knows, up there with the one shared with his beloved little sister Thea. He's come to love her greatly; this tiny rambling blond whose never once looked at him with disgust, hate, or fear after learning his secret. She is the person who knows him best—someone he never feels the need to wear a mask around, someone who without even trying makes him want to be better. The single one person he has never felt as if he's done nothing but disappoint them.

So, yes, Oliver Queen couldn't tell you exactly when it happened, but he could tell you that didn't matter, because it did. He fell in love with his I.T. girl extraordinaire, Felicity Smoak.