It was early morning, just about eight o'clock, when Felicity Smoak entered the offices of Palmer Technologies with her key card. She was tired, having barely slept the night before after coming home late from dinner, but she was also determined to continue work as if nothing had happened the previous night. She had, after all, managed to keep up that façade with Oliver for months, so she supposed it wouldn't be that much harder with Ray.
Trying to dismiss these thoughts from her mind, she attempted a smile at the receptionist, Pamela.
"Good morning, Miss Smoak," the young woman said, smiling back. "You're in early today."
"Yeah, well, numbers don't crunch themselves," Felicity replied, and, shouldering her handbag, she made for the elevator. She hoped she wouldn't bump into Ray.
"Oh, by the way, Miss Smoak, did Mr Queen find you last night?"
Felicity stopped in her tracks, turned on the spot and narrowed her eyes. "Mr Queen?" she repeated. "Oliver, you mean?"
Pamela nodded. "Yes, he came by last night and was asking which floor your office was on."
"Last night…" Felicity closed her eyes. No, she thought. He didn't see anything.
So what if he did, anyway? the other voice in her head argued. It's not like we're together or anything.
"Yes. I did think it was strange, him coming that late at night, but I…"
But Felicity was already heading in the other direction. "Thanks for letting me know," she called over her shoulder.
Twenty minutes later, Felicity was knocking on the door of Oliver's loft. She'd never been there, despite its close proximity to the foundry, and she wondered if this was even the right thing to do. She had turned tail pretty quickly in Palmer Technologies, and it was only now that the suddenness of her visit properly came to her attention. After all, Oliver had only ever come by her apartment when he'd needed to, when she had insisted, and it was never unannounced. Felicity hadn't even called him.
She wondered why she hadn't. It would have been easier, sure, to call and just ask why he had come by the office looking for her, but she had a feeling he would have evaded her, something that would have been made easier if it were over the phone.
Her thoughts were interrupted, however, when the door opened. Preceding her appearance with a yawn, Thea Queen pushed her hair away from her face and regarded Felicity with surprise. Thea squinted for a moment – probably because of the sunlight streaming through the doorway over Felicity's head – and then nodded in recognition.
"It's Felicity, right?" she said. "You used to work at Queen Consolidated?"
"Yeah," Felicity replied. "Still do, actually. Only, it's not QC anymore – it's PT, as in, Palmer Technologies… which I'm guessing you totally didn't want to know about because it used to be your family's and—"
"Ollie was right," Thea interrupted, a half-smile forming on her lips, "you definitely talk a lot."
Felicity was surprised at that. For some reason, she hadn't ever thought about Oliver talking about her to his family – especially Thea.
Still, she took a breath and said apologetically, "Sorry. Um, is Oliver awake? I know it's early, but he's usually an early riser and he barely sleeps anyway, so I figured he's probably…around."
Thea laughed. "It's not so long after closing at the club, actually. Come in." She stepped back, and Felicity entered the loft. It was much bigger than she expected, furnished in a minimalist fashion that seemed closer to Thea's taste than Oliver's. Still, the gleam of the polished wooden floor and the smell of leather was homely, and Felicity once again felt relieved that Oliver was living in better quarters. The foundry was fine to work in, but she had no idea how Oliver had lived there for so long.
"Ollie!" Thea called, breaking Felicity's train of thought.
"Yeah?" Oliver's voice was accompanied by footsteps that sounded quieter than normal.
"Someone's here to see you."
"Who?"
"Your girlfriend—"
"Speedy, for the last time, Felicity is not my girlfriend!"
At that moment, Oliver emerged, feet bare, clad only in a dressing gown that was wrapped across his chest. His hair was wet and tousled and Felicity could see water droplets falling down his neck. He looked a little sleepy, a sight Felicity was unused to (almost always, his eyes were clear blue and alert), but when their eyes met, his eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"Fine," Thea said, an amused smirk on her face. "Felicity's here to see you. I'd put some clothes on if I were you."
"Hey, Oliver," Felicity said. "Sorry, I should have called…"
Oliver shook his head. "No, it's fine, Felicity. Just, uh, give me a minute."
Trying to suppress a laugh at the look on Thea's face, Felicity said, "Sure."
With that, Oliver disappeared from the room so fast that his speed rivalled Barry's.
"So what's the deal with you two, anyway?" Thea asked.
"No deal," Felicity replied easily. "He's right. We're just friends."
"Sure you are," said Thea. "That's why you know about my brother's sleeping habits."
"I just spend a lot of time with him," Felicity said, trying not to sound defensive. "As a friend."
Thea rolled her eyes but apparently decided not to press the matter any further. She looked thoughtful. "He was never like that before. You know, before he…disappeared, he used to sleep in all the time. It drove Mom nuts because he'd always miss college."
Felicity chuckled. "Late night drinking parties will do that to you."
Thea smiled too, and at the heavy sound of Oliver's footsteps, she looked up. "You going somewhere? Do you want breakfast?"
"I'm fine, Speedy." To Felicity's surprise, Oliver was fully dressed and was pulling on his brown leather jacket. "You ready to go?" he said to her.
"Uh, go where?" she asked.
"I thought you needed me in the…office," Oliver said slowly.
"Yeah, why would she need you in Queen Consolidated?" Thea asked, and inwardly Felicity groaned. Maybe coming to see Oliver was a mistake.
"Actually, I just wanted to, er, talk," Felicity said quickly. "About…yesterday evening." She was going to say "last night", but she knew how that sounded.
(For once, at least, her verbal filter seemed to be working.)
"Oh," he said after a pause. Realisation appeared to dawn on his features, and again, Felicity felt slightly nervous. "Sure. Thea, do you mind…?"
Thea was already on her feet. "Yeah, I need to go to bed anyway. Nice talking to you, Felicity."
"You too," Felicity replied, proffering a smile. After patting Oliver's shoulder, Thea headed off, presumably to her room. Oliver took a seat on the couch next to her, and Felicity couldn't help but notice he was maintaining a careful distance between them. It was only after the click of her door closing, however, that Oliver spoke.
"What's up? Not that I'm not glad to see you, but I don't think you've ever made a house call." He said this lightly, with a smile, but Felicity could detect his expression was more than a little forced.
"Since you came to see me in my office."
He met her eyes, then, holding her gaze unblinkingly for several seconds. "It was nothing. I hope I didn't disturb you."
She reached out and her fingers briefly brushed his knuckles. "Oliver…"
"Felicity, it was nothing. Doesn't matter."
"You're a bad liar," she blurted, folding her arms. Felicity took a breath, moved her hand away and stood up, moving towards the glass doors that led to the balcony.
Oliver just smiled. Then he sighed in resignation. "Fine. I just came by to apologise."
That surprised her. "You did? For what?"
"For interrupting your… work dinner. And for kind of being a jerk to you in the foundry."
"Oh." Felicity wasn't sure what she had expected, but it wasn't that. She turned, her back to him, looking out at the city. A few seconds passed, however, when she heard him get to his feet, and even more unexpected was his hand on her arm. She looked up at him and blinked several times; the sunlight streaming through the window lit up the sharp outline of his jaw and cheekbones, casting a shadow of his silhouette on the polished wooden floor.
"So yeah. If I was short with you, I'm sorry. And if I messed up your deal because you were helping me catch Cutter, I… I hope I can make it up to you."
"Actually, we got what we wanted. Ray wanted this guy's mine, and I helped convince him to sell." She smiled up at him and gently removed his hand from her wrist. "I multitask better than most people. Don't worry."
"That's great." For a moment, Oliver looked like he was hesitating. "Felicity, I really hope you're happy with him. You deserve to be… happy."
Felicity rolled her eyes, not entirely surprised but not as annoyed as she thought she would be either. "Really? I kind of expected everyone at Palmer Tech to be convinced I slept my way up to being VP – after all the gossip I had to deal with when I got my QC promotion, it was kind of a given –"
"You knew about that?"
"I do have ears, you know. And you did kind of make me your secretary – which totally just has all the wrong connotations."
He chuckled, and somewhere inside her, she was glad she still had the ability to make him laugh.
"Anyway. My point is, just because those rumours exist doesn't mean they're true."
"So… your dinner with him was just dinner? There's nothing going on?"
"What happened to it being none of your business?" Felicity said, her smile evaporating.
"Felicity, I didn't mean…"
She could feel her voice go brittle. "There's nothing going on. Ray and me – he's just my boss. And even if I wanted something to happen – not that I do, because I definitely don't – I'm pretty sure he doesn't, you'll be pleased to know."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
Felicity laughed but it was without humour. "No, you're not."
"I just want you to be happy, Felicity."
"And what about yourself?" she said softly. "I heard what you said to Carrie Cutter. How you… you feel like you should be alone."
"I wasn't wrong."
Felicity sighed. "Oliver, you're one of the smartest people I know, and considering the company I'm in nowadays, that is really saying something. But you can be really stupid sometimes." She placed her hand on his shoulder. "Hey. Whatever's gone on with us, you're not alone. I'm still here."
"I know you are," he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. "I just wish… in a way… that we could go back."
"If I could go back, I would pick somewhere other than Table Salt for our first date."
They both smiled at that.
"What I meant was… I know things have been tense between us lately whenever a certain… subject comes up."
"Then stop bringing it up!" Felicity said, exasperated. "Oliver, I keep trying to get to a place where I think I'm okay – that we're okay – and then you drop some ridiculous line like you did with Cutter last night -"
"Felicity, I promise I didn't have some agenda –"
"I'm not saying you did. I'm just saying that I don't need to be reminded every time you drop some bombshell about… whatever, that things didn't work out with us. I guess, what I'm saying, Oliver, is that I wish we could just put it all to one side and be friends without feeling like something is… weighing on us the whole time."
For what felt like forever, Oliver was silent. His eyes seemed fixed on a point just above her shoulder. But then he looked up. "You're right. I'm sorry."
He looked like he was going to say something more, but at that moment, Felicity's phone rang.
"Sorry, one second," she said, reaching into her handbag for her phone.
"Hi, Captain Lance."
"Felicity. I could use your help with a homicide that just came in."
"Sure. What can I do for you?"
"Victim's name is Kai Wu. Record's clean as a whistle. Murder weapon was a boomerang."
"A boomerang?" she repeated. "That's a new one."
"Yeah. I can get it to you later today, and hopefully we can catch this guy before he drops any more bodies."
"We're on it," she said. "Thanks, Captain."
With that, she hung up. "Some guy is killing people with boomerangs," she said by way of explanation. "Lance wants us to look into it."
"Well, I hope whoever's behind this isn't as crazy as Cutter."
Felicity laughed. "She set a pretty high bar, to be fair."
Oliver smiled, and Felicity could tell that there were still unsaid words between them, things both of them wanted to say but couldn't and wouldn't. Yet, somehow, she was okay with it. She felt lighter, as if some weight on her shoulders had been lifted, just as her spirits were.
"You were right, by the way," he said.
"I usually am," she replied, and they both smiled. "Which time, though?"
"After dealing with Cutter, the word 'lover' will always sound creepy."