"Look, Ollie, I'm fine."
He wants to believe her, but knows better. She's been through so much, and he'd been the root cause of a majority, if not all, of her problems. So, just for a moment, he lets himself believe that she is actually fine. He pretends Laurel is happy and he is the pre-island Oliver. That he is the Ollie of before.
He had asked to meet up with Laurel after she had reached out to him via his alter ego to look into Sebastian Blood. He wanted to believe that Laurel no longer blamed the Arrow for Tommy; but taking it at face value was too risky and left him vulnerable to another trap. Unsure of her motives for the sudden cease-fire, Oliver decided the best route is to simply ask her, as Oliver.
He makes small talk, insists he wants to maintain a friendship with her. Makes a few jokes, lets calculated levity seep in. He gently steers the conversation to her new job. Disarms her with his best playboy smirk. Watches the blush, and then asks with false disinterest her thoughts on the vigilante. Her lips twitch; she sobers, and responds with earnest, "He skirts the justice system. I don't know how to be ok with that. But right now, he is helping this city more than anyone else. So I am adjusting. I'm trying to anyways." The pregnant pause is tense as he contemplates her words.
"You're To Be Decided" as flippant as the eternal jock she thinks he is.
Chuckling, Laurel responds with a smile, "TBD"
Cheerful mood back in place. Cover maintained.
He relinquishes the control of conversation, and lets her talk. He sees her and worries. She sounds happy while simultaneously looking broken. He feels the weight of the lie hiding Sara's existence as sharply as one of his arrows. As their 'chat' (if you can call it that, seeing as it was a covert interrogation on his part) winds down, he let sincere concern field his vision.
She's fine. With a kiss on the cheek, she's off to do something or another. He realizes for all his observational skills, he had stopped listening almost entirely to her. But he got what he had wanted, sort of.
Stepping out of the coffee shop into the warm sunny day, Oliver suddenly feels the exhaustion from pretending. He feels the fatigue in his joints and worries that if one little coffee session can make him feel this bad, how the hell is he supposed to go on like this for… for what? When does he stop? Should he be thinking of and expiration date for the Hood?
Everything is suddenly suffocating, and he needs an escape from his life, lives. Oliver starts walking, watching families mill about on a pretty Sunday afternoon. Hopes that maybe some of there happiness can reach him. He goes towards Starling City Central Park. Keeps going towards less populated areas where some couples are cuddled up together on the grassy hills. Enjoying the calm and taking deep breaths. He keeps walking until he sees Felicity.
—
Her white sundress, hugging the curves that he often has to try not to notice, fans out on the navy blue blanket. Her golden hair left out with soft curls. He wonders if he's ever seen her hair like that. Not up in a no-nonsense ponytail, or straightened, or curled with one of the curling irons that Thea loves so much. But just natural and flowing, and free. He decides he likes it. Upon further inspection, he sees she's barefoot and her eyes are shut.
"Felicity?" softly muttering unsure if she is in fact napping.
"Oliver" she breathes out, but doesn't open her eyes.
"What are you doing?"
" Un-Wiring," she hums.
He feels a little lost, awkwardly standing above a not-napping shut-eyed Felicity.
She sighs, pauses, and perseveres, "Drink the wine and join, or leave."
Confused He glances to his feet, and sees a small picnic basket with a bottle of merlot and an empty wine glass. He's really beginning to worry about his self-awareness, how had he not seen that? He pours himself a glass, thinks for a beat, and fills it to the brim.
Taking large sips, he sits. Looking at the glass he frowns at the lack of lipstick marks that usually stain all of Felicity's cups. They never have to label drinks because Felicity's are tagged with a signature red pout on the rim. He looks at His Girl Friday and sees that she is makeup free. He can count her dark eyelashes; see the often-covered freckles sprinkling her nose.
Finished with his tall glass, he opens his mouth to speak. Before he can even utter a word, Felicity interrupts, "Ten minutes Oliver" Spoken softly, but firmly with her eyes still closed, and hands elegantly folded.
He lies down and waits. After a few minutes, he begins to relax. The warmth of the sun and Felicity's contentment surrounds him. Oliver feels light, the wine clearly working.
He hears Felicity take a deep breath and release a happy sigh. Not sure, but Oliver assumes that the ten minutes of Felicity's imposed silence are up. Turning towards her, he rests on his side,
"So, uh, unwiring?"
A soft smile graces her face, the only shift in her expression, really.
"Yeah, un-wiring. It's a thing I do when I've been stuck behind a computer for too long. You, know, coding," lowering her voice, "hacking…"
He smiles
"…Even IT geeks like me need a moment away from tech-monsters and shiny objects"
Oliver wonders if he's partially at fault for working her so hard that she needs an escape. He tries to tell her that.
"If you ever need a break, if it's too much, you just say the word. I know I ask a lot from you, but if you need to leave, just…" he lets it hang, because the thought of her taking him up on the offer, of leaving, is too much. But he knows he would never want her to stay at the sacrifice of her happiness. He'd like to preserve her unaffected innocence for as long as he can; especially in the world that both of them are involved in.
His internal monologue is interrupted by Felicity's laughter. She's giggling, her cheeks are flushed, and her nose scrunched. She finally looks at him grinning, "Oh Oliver! I am a self-proclaimed, and very proud, might I add, computer geek, neigh computer genius. I do what I love. Plus, I've been doing this back before I even new you. My friend insisted I start having some sort of unplugging session back when I was computer science major at MIT. I was always cooped up in the computer-lab doing whatever I had to do. I think I went a whole month without actually seeing the sun. He said I was no longer fun and on my way to becoming Emily Dickinson with a tablet." She's moving her hands while she explains her story. She pauses, no doubt wondering if he understood her reference, and if she needed to further explain it. She decides against it, and continues. Her thoughts so apparent on her face, he wonders how she keeps his biggest secret, but knows that he trusts her implicitly.
"…We started having these little sessions. An hour, a whole day, whatever I needed, to decompress, and well unwire. I have a ritual and everything." She looks at him, lowers her hands, an attempt to reign in her ramble, he's sure, "anyways, the point is that I do this for me", she waves her hands around her little haven, "not because of you."
He had listened very carefully to everything she said, and had a lot of questions, but couldn't vocalize them because her was struck by her gaze. In the time he'd been here, Felicity had been relaxing with her eyes closed. While it gave him an opportunity to fully see her, and notice things that took more than a cursory glance, this was the longest he'd ever been in Felicity's presence without seeing her eyes. So he was struck by just how blue they really were with flecks of green, and a world of emotion. God, what was wrong with him? It was what, twenty, maybe thirty minutes, and he was missing her eyes? Jesus, even he had to admit that that was creepy.
—
Oliver was staring at her. Intensely. He shakes his head to nobody in particular, and then surprises her with a smile. A real smile. All teeth showing, eyes crinkling; not his fake player smile. He usually just looked constipated when he did that. No, this was a real as can be type of smile. Felicity can't stop herself from wondering how many hearts that smile has broken, because her's is definitely melting. Of course, she'd just blame it on the heat. Felicity likes to think that number for this particular smile can't be that high simply because not many women are lucky enough to actually see it. Oliver wont let them. It'd be kind of sad, if it didn't make her feel so damn special. She theorizes that Thea, her, and most probably Laurel are the few lucky ones.
Laurel, beautiful Laurel.
He was supposed to meet up with her to talk to her about the Arrow against the advisement of both Felicity and Diggle. She senses that Oliver feels Dig is just over cautious, and that she is a girl with a crush. Which technically is true. But she resents the fact that he could attribute her reluctance as some petty form of jealousy, and not true concern for the team, and him; because Oliver would be talking to Laurel about Oliver. About himself, and no matter how Oliver compartmentalizes, Laurels opinion on the Arrow was Laurel's opinion on Oliver, because he was the Arrow. Knowing she couldn't voice those thoughts, she'd tried to explain how that could jeopardize their covers. All of their covers. He ignored his pesky IT girl, and probably had plans to see Laurel soon. She wonders if he already has. If she should ask him? She mentally scolds herself. No, today is unwiring, means no computers, and no stress.
Looking at Oliver's warm, but intense gaze, she drops her hands and awkwardly coughs.
Amused, Oliver raises an eyebrow, "you've got a ritual, for, what did you call it, un…"
"Wiring! Unwiring. You sure you want to know, there's kind of a lot. It can be kind of tedious. So… I don't know," she trails of, muttering to herself.
"Try me," Simple, to the point. Oh, he has no idea.
"First thing first: The Rules."
She's cut off by him laughing, which she in turn cuts off with her icy glare, or she wishes. To Oliver, it looked more like the look a helpless little kitten that can't reach the milk gets, but for her sake, he tries to stifle his response. Slightly coughing her musters an apology.
"Sorry, Sorry, you have rules to relax?," smiling, he shakes his head, "only you"
She softens, "yeah, well trust me, they're important"
She waits, and he just nods his head, while clearly still amused, and silently nudges her to continue.
So she barrels on. Deep breath, "Ok, number one: NO technology, of any kind. This means the obvious, no laptops, computers, and tablets. And the lesser ones, no cell phones, ipods, Kindles, yada yada, etcetera etcetra…" hands motioning freely, she looks and smiles at him. The sun touches her hair, and he commits this moment to memory.
"Number two," she looks up under her lashes at him, with slight embarrassment, " Ok, this ones new, and yes, I know you're going to try to blame yourself for it, but just don't, OK?"
Confused he looks at her, expecting her to continue, until he realizes she wouldn't say another word until he answered her. A stubborn kitten.
"um, ok"
"Ok so rule number two, absolutely no QC OR Arrow work," she's waiting for some sort of reaction from him.
He schools his features into a look that says 'Duh, obviously' and for added emphasis he mumbles "no brainer." She looks pleasantly surprised, and he resolves to continue to surprise her as often as he can.
"Third, this ones important, one hour."
"One hour?"
"Yeah, one hour, or till fully unwired. Whichever takes longer. It usually takes a whole day, but if I don't commit at least a full hour to trying, I'm going to want to leave after the first few minutes, and login to my cloud, or whatever. So the rule is stay an hour, and then some, but always an hour."
He takes her in, and chews over her rules, "no tech, no work, one hour. Seems reasonable and simple"
She laughs, " I know right! But it's not, especially not anymore. In college the hardest one was the full hour. I was always desperate to study for a test, or do this or that. Now I'm glad. Everything is ok for one hour, except when it isn't," brows furrowed, "now it's one and two the cause are the hardest to follow. What if something happens and or someone dies or something. Seriously, how would I explain that to you guys 'Uh, hey guys, sorry, I couldn't help you not get killed, I was unwiring."
Oliver finds it comical that she alters her voice to imitate herself.
"I think the world will survive if you take a measly hour for yourself" Oh, he thinks he's funny does he. She'd like to see his response the next time he needs her to hack some unbreachable database and she says 'sorry dude, you'll survive.'
"Yeah, well, its not always that easy. Which is why I don't do this very often, only when I really need it and I think things at both QC and Arrow are stable and able to survive without me. I do anything that might need to be done before, make phone calls, let the right people know what I'll be up to, and then I unwire," her smile warms him. He's about to respond, when she jumps in " AND Sundays"
"Sundays?"
"Always Sundays. Nothing's better then a lazy Sunday afternoon"
How has she not been marred by the tragedy that follows his life and what they do? She's still happy and so radiant. He'd hate himself if her light were snuffed out by the life he brought her in.
Wanting to remove the depressing thoughts he shakes his head.
"Rituals, you said you had rituals?"
"Ah, yes I do! And they're as sacred as the rules, so do not mock"
Grinning he raises his hands in surrender, "I would never"
"Ok so first, the wine. Full glass, sipped, not chugged, breath it in, swirl it around. Enjoy it. Two glasses if necessary." She glares at Oliver, clearly unimpressed, "you drank yours too fast, next time, savor it," she all but huffs.
Amused at how serious she takes her wine he waits for her to continue.
"Wine time isn't strict silence, but its not a time for you to become a chatty Kathy either," looking at him she realized, she would never have to worry about that with him. She might just let him be the exception to the rule. "But, the next 10 minutes are silent." He watches the summer breeze tickle her hair, and a serene look pass her face. "The next ten minutes, you let the sun warm you, and the wine tickle your toes. No pretending, or trying too hard. The next ten minutes you just be. And then the hour starts. Nothing set in stone, that always changes, but the first ten or so minutes never do."
—
She looks up at him, biting her lip, unsure if he'll try to be polite while he internally ridicules her very sacred Sunday.
"You are remarkable"
Oi, she really needs to murder those damn butterflies.
"well, thank you for remarking on it"
The share a knowing smile
"What was today's plan, before I interrupted?" Oliver even looks a little embarrassed
"Nothing really, It was pretty outside today, I thought I'd just take it all in."
"How bout you tell me about your day Oliver Queen?"
(He was nostalgic first)
Bemused, "My day? You're with me pretty much all day, I'm pretty sure you know how it went"
"I know how it went on paper, Oliver. I'm your overqualified secretary," She continues before he can correct her and say she's actually an executive assistant-like that's so much better-"But I'm asking you to tell me about your day from your point of view. Consider it a lesson in perspective."
"I thought you said no QC talk"
"You can be my exception"
They sit side by side while Oliver shares details about his week as CEO of Queen Consolidated. He explains the thrill of making a deal with Irvine Manufactures. Explaining that with the new supplier they would save at least 20% on overhead costs. She becomes especially enrapture when he explains how he had to convince both investors, QC Board, and Isabel Rochev on a potential new project for the applied science department. Investors needed assurances in regards towards QC's past natural disaster involvement. The Board needed profit assurance. And Isabel needed assurance of control. She was surprised at the finesse he used to craft arguments for each individual party both while separated and when grouped together. The failed investors meeting he held on Thursday let Oliver know that despite all the success, he still was nowhere near CEO material. Even with Felicity jumping in his defense, Oliver explained how little he really new about the corporate world.
"I grew up enjoying the benefits, not quite resenting it, but never respecting it. My dad was always happy, it just seemed so easy, and boring. And just now, every time I get stuck, I just, I don't know… I wish I had taken a moment to learn from my Dad, ya know? I had the best teacher, and I wasted it."
She wants to say something along the lines of how proud his father would be, but it feels so trite in her head, so she squeezes his hand, and wishes that was enough to pull him out of his own thoughts.
Felicity herself was surprised by how interesting all of this really was. She'd planned enough schedules, read over all the notes Oliver had, and researched every company or persons involved in everything Oliver talked about today, but she'd never got the details, and they had her on the edge of seat even though she already knew how it ended.
—
When the sun starts to set, he watches Felicity take it all in, just as she said she would. And it's a site to behold. Her mouth is slightly parted. Hair wild, and glasses now firmly placed on the bridge of her nose. She's a hot mess. She stretches her legs. Wow, have her legs always been this long, and lean? He chases away thoughts of having those same legs wrapped around him.
They both stand, while Felicity packs the wine glass and bottle, folding the blanket. She looks at him with an unsure expression on her face that she seems to clear with a shake of her head and quite chuckle to herself. He's about to question her when she smiles and walks up to him.
"This was nice, thanks for hanging with me," She steps on her tiptoes, and kisses his cheek, "See you tomorrow Mr. Queen"
—
She leaves the park, and he had every intention of offering her a ride, or an escort, but he can't move. His heart is racing and he still feels the warmth of her lips ghosting his face. In his life, Oliver Queen has been with and done things that can make a stripper blush, but it seems like a peck on the cheek has him slightly off balance.
He walks home and reflects that coffee with the supposed love of his life left him feeling suffocated, but now he felt calm and relaxed. Breathing wasn't an act of desperation. Not wanting to think too much about it, or his very pretty IT girl, Oliver attributed his current content state to the success of a session of 'unwiring.' He'd have to ask her to do it again…
AN: I'm not sure if this is any good, but hope someone likes it!