Title (full): I'll Make Sure To Say I Love You When You're Not Listening.

Spoilers: vague references to 2x07.

Disclaimer: Not even remotely mine. This is just for fun.

AN: I wrote a little drabble on tumblr after 2x07 and thought that was good enough, but apparently it wasn't. This idea just wouldn't leave me alone, so I decided to give it a little attention. I left it open ended on purpose, because I'm undecided on whether or not I'll continue it. I hope you enjoy it; leave me a review and let me know what you think?

Oliver knew that he wasn't a wildly self-aware person, but he liked to think that he'd made progress in that area by leaps and bounds in the last seven years. He had learned a lot about himself during those hellish five years – life had seen fit to teach him lessons he never could have even dreamed of learning. Still, he knew that he had a long way to go before he would admit to having a working understanding of himself.

Nothing could have made that more apparent than the last few days had. A week had passed since he'd answered his phone to hear the Count on the other end, crowing gleefully about having Felicity held hostage in his office; a week in which Oliver had attempted to come to terms with some very heavy realizations.

A week had passed in which Oliver Queen could attest to being not only aware of his Executive Assistant, but painfully, hyper aware of her. Felicity had become like some sort of high-powered magnet, an unstoppable force that tugged insistently at all of his senses whenever she was within twenty feet of him. He felt as though he'd been stripped bare, his nerve endings a jumble of live wires that threatened to spark at the slightest provocation; he felt … vulnerable; exposed. Only now, all that time later, was any part of Oliver willing to acknowledge that the deranged drug lord had unwittingly struck on something that even he had not.

Felicity Smoak wasn't just a chink in his armor, a slight weakness in his wall that could be easily patched over and reinforced: she was a gaping chasm of vulnerability, cleverly concealed in brightly colored lipstick and smart pencil skirts. Oliver hadn't realized that – hadn't realized just what it would do to him to see her shaking and zip tied to that chair; he could not have anticipated the way it would unravel him.

He had not intended to kill the other man. Oliver had been angry, adrenaline pulling the lines of his body taut, but he hadn't made any plans to put an arrow in the Count.

Oliver didn't think he'd ever forget the way Felicity had looked at him as she'd reminded him of his vow; "not for me", she'd said, and those words had pierced his heart in too many ways to name. He had meant to stop the Count, but he hadn't meant to kill him; he would still be alive, if he hadn't made the egregious error of attempting to stab that double syringe into Felicity's neck. Oliver had seen the truth of the situation – the truth of himself – in the split second that it took to loose one, and then another, and then another arrow into the drug lord's chest. He had discovered the truth of himself, and it had terrified him.

The hyper awareness had started the next day, as he'd watched the wary way she kept glancing through the glass walls at the long table in the conference room. She didn't complain – didn't say anything about the trepidation that he could clearly see radiating off of her small frame – just went about her work with lips pressed thinly together and a marked lack of chatter. Oliver had not known how to make it better, how to ease the tension in her shoulders, so he had done his best to check on her and be softer than he knew was usual. He was terse and withdrawn even on his best days, so he didn't know if the effort had even registered with her; he hoped that it had.

Oliver's thoughts were interrupted then by the soft slide of glass over marble and he looked away from his computer screen to see Felicity headed for him. He had to work very hard to maintain his easy posture and neutral expression, when really he felt like the air had suddenly become electrified. That was what her presence did to him now.

"I'm about to head home," she told him, stopping near the corner of the desk that was closest to him. "Do you need anything else?"

"No," he answered softly, shaking his head slightly. "Thank you."

Felicity had already turned on her heel to head for the door when his voice stopped her.

"Hey."

The tone of voice, so soft and sincere, would have been enough to stop her, but he didn't stop there; he reached out to wrap a large hand around her wrist. The contact surprised her, because Oliver was not what she would call touchy-feely, and the few times he did touch her he usually kept it to her shoulder. Barring the times of high stress – like after burying three arrows in the Count – when he would cup her cheek.

She turned back to face him, her stomach flipping ridiculously when she saw the way he was looking at her. Felicity considered herself well versed in the vocabulary of Oliver's expressions, but this one was unreadable; there was … well, the only word that came to her mind was tenderness, but that didn't seem right. Oliver was usually gentle with her, but tender? She didn't think so.

"I know that this week must have been hard for you," he started, blue eyes fixed on her face, "and I'm sorry. I appreciate the effort, and if you need to talk … I'm here."

The warmth of his calloused palm against the thin skin of her wrist was not lost on her; the overactive part of her brain was already spinning a tangled web of possible reasons why he would still have a hold of her wrist. That same part of her brain also didn't hesitate to point out that she was making no move to pull away.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Oliver, but you're not exactly the talking type."

She thought she saw the beginnings of a smile pull at the corner of his mouth, but she couldn't be sure.

"Maybe not, but I am an excellent listener."

Felicity looked dubious. He could tell that she was a little at war with herself, one part of her wanting to decline and the other wanting to take him up on his offer. She folded the corner of her bottom lip into her teeth, an act that he had come to recognize as a sign of her indecision. Oliver had learned that one of the biggest advantages of being the strong and silent type was the ability to observe and retain virtual books of information on other people – like their tells.

He stood, keeping his loose hold on her wrist and choosing not to think about the fact that she hadn't mentioned it, and led her over to the black leather couches near the window.

"Give me a minute," he said, motioning for her to sit down. Oliver strode quickly to the elevator, privately thankful that being the CEO offered him buttons like the one outside the metal doors that would shut down the generator for the machine and bar anyone from interrupting. Just for good measure, he decided to lock the door to the stairwell as well; if Felicity needed to talk to him, then he would make damn sure that she got to – and that no one could impose a time limit on said talk.

When he returned, she was seated on the couch closest to the window and looked nervous.

"Okay; talk." He took up a spot next to her, close enough that he could reach out and touch her if he wanted to. She was wringing her hands together in her lap; he waited patiently.

"I … uh … I can't stop thinking about it," she began, her voice hesitant and her eyes darting away from his face every few seconds. "All of it, but mostly … mostly I can't stop thinking about what my stupidity cost you."

When she chanced a peek at his face, his eyebrows had arched in the way they always did when he was about to argue with her. Felicity directed her eyes back to her hands and forged on before he could interrupt. "I just knew what you were going through with your mom's trial and everything, ya know, and I didn't want to give you anything else to worry about and Digg looked so awful … I really thought I'd be able to just sneak into that truck and pocket one of the fake vaccines, and then he was there … and then when he crashed through that window, I didn't care – I was relieved. Relieved, Oliver! He was a human being and all I cared about as he fell to his death was that I was safe, and then I realized what had happened and it just … I know what it meant to you, breaking the vow that you made to honor Tommy, and knowing that I'm the one that cost you that …"

Her chest felt too tight, the air sticking in her throat as she tried to force it down into lungs that felt sluggish. She had seen the pain in his face when he'd gone to her, seen the invisible weight settle around his shoulders that came with the knowledge that he had killed again; that he had dishonored Tommy's memory, and all because she had been naïve enough to think that she could help.

"You didn't kill those Hood thugs when they took Thea," she continued, and her voice thickened with unshed tears as she did so, "and you didn't kill the Doll Maker when he had Laurel, but you killed the Count because I was stupid enough to put you in that situation …"

Oliver was aware of a sharp pain in his breast as he stared at the woman next to him, her blonde hair transformed into rivers of liquid gold in the setting sunlight that streamed in through the window behind her. He would have found it funny, perhaps, if he had seen it happen to someone else: the way Felicity managed to simultaneously see and not see him; to read his pain and then wonderfully misunderstand what was causing it.

"Felicity." He knew that he shouldn't like saying her name as much as he did; he didn't care. Oliver reached out to take one of her feminine hands in his own, a mirror of when she'd thanked him in the basement of Verdant. This time, however, he pulled her hand into his lap and waited until her eyes made their way to his. The sheen of tears did not escape his notice. "What happened to the Count was not your fault."

She answered him with a watery chuckle that sounded dangerously close to a sob.

"Hey – I mean it. I know you were trying to help; you always try to help, and I appreciate that. Nothing that happened was your fault. I chose to put those arrows in his chest, and I choose to believe that Tommy would understand, but I meant what I said that night: he had you and he was going to hurt you – there was no choice to make." He paused for the span of a breath before adding, "not for me."

Oliver didn't add that he had been enraged to think about what would happen to her if the other man had jabbed her with that double needle, or the cold terror that had crept up from his toes to his heart at the thought of what could be in those syringes; he did not mention that he had loosed those arrows in a wild rage that he had not felt since his days on the island. He had already admitted enough – too much, almost – and anything more would come dangerously close to revealing that one glaring truth that he had spent the last few days struggling with.

Felicity was fighting hard to reign in the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, just as touched by his declaration in that moment as she had been in the one days past. She knew herself well enough to know that she would never feel completely absolved of guilt, but it helped her knowing that Oliver didn't blame her. Over the last few days she had caught him watching her with a look that sometimes seemed tortured at worst, and concerned at best. She couldn't help feeling like something in their dynamic had changed, but she hadn't been able to identify what it was and feared that it stemmed from resentment.

The way he had taken her hand had surprised her, but that was nothing to the surprise – shock – that she felt when he dropped one arm around her shoulders and tugged her gently into his side. His arm was heavy and solid, like iron, and the weight of it felt good as it pressed down around her shoulders; she scooted toward him, or they scooted toward each other, and then he was turning toward her and holding her against the wide plane of his chest. She hesitated for a second, her mind trying to catch up with what was happening, and then she let her arms wrap around his midsection. He smelled like mint and sandalwood.

"There's nothing wrong with feeling relieved when a threat to your life has been neutralized," he told the top of her head. "That doesn't make you a bad person." Oliver couldn't imagine a world in which Felicity Smoak was a bad person; there never had been and never would be a precedent for it. The Count had kidnapped and threatened one of the biggest hearted, most selfless people that Oliver had ever known, perhaps in the whole of Starling City; someone who had been willing to suffer whatever fate befell her at the hands of a mad man if it meant Oliver got to keep his vow of not killing.

"I had a bit of a panic attack," Felicity admitted against his tieless suit shirt. She was grateful that it was technically after hours, and that most of the Queen Consolidated work force had already gone home. "When I walked into the office Monday morning; I had to hide in the bathroom for a few minutes. Everything was fixed, perfectly in place, but all I saw was broken glass and shadows."

Oliver hugged her tighter and tucked his cheek against her hair. He had never hugged Felicity – had never allowed himself more than brief touches to her shoulders or the cradling of her cheek when the situation was more dire. He had never really considered it before, their lack of physical contact, and now he spent more time than he wanted to admit thinking about it. Oliver had never shied away from physical contact, but neither had he been known as a particularly hands on sort of person; he had learned through observation that Felicity was not the same. She was an affectionate person, and she didn't mind showing that affection in little touches, or even in the way that she'd kissed Digg's cheek a few weeks ago when they were in Russia. Felicity liked both giving and receiving affection, although she seemed more hesitant with it where he was concerned.

The thought of Russia made Oliver's stomach tighten for a different reason. He could not think of the country without recalling Felicity and the frankly dumbfounded expression on her face when Isabel Rochev had slipped out of his room like an eel; consequently, he would always find his mind then turning to the image of her seated at her desk, asking him why he'd slept with her.

Oliver didn't remember much of his English classes, but he thought that it qualified as a cruel sort of irony that a short time after he told Felicity that he thought it better not to get involved with someone he could really care about, someone had come along to throw that statement in his face.

He admitted it then, Felicity clasped firmly against him and bathed in the rutilant light of a setting sun: they may not have been in a relationship, but Oliver already really cared for her. That was the truth that the Count had accidentally revealed to him, the truth that short circuited his logic and reasoning and led him to lodge not one, but three arrows in the man who dared threaten her.

Oliver had been so stunned at the ferocity of his reaction – at the brutality with which he'd killed that man – that he'd felt almost shell shocked. The last time that he had felt that kind of anger and responded that way had been on the island, when he'd beaten a man to death with a rock because he was going to hurt Shado; the similarities of the situations had only occurred to him several hours later, when he'd been sequestered in his room and unable to get his mind off of what had happened.

The consciousness of that parallel had stuck with him and made him see Felicity with new eyes; it had been the jumping off point for his newfound awareness of everything that she did, everything that she was.

"You were right," she mumbled against his chest, her voice muffled. "You are great. At listening, I mean, great at listening, not … ya know, other things … not that you aren't great at other things, because I'm sure you are, I didn't mean …"

Oliver couldn't help the breathy chuckle that rumbled out of his chest then. He finally released her, reluctant to feel the rush of cool air as it filled the space where her body had just been, and leaned back to give her room.

"If you ever need to tell someone about your day …"

"I can tell you," she finished for him, a call back to an older conversation. "I know. Thank you. And it goes both ways, ya know. You made find this hard to believe, but I can stop rambling long enough to listen to whatever you want to say."

Felicity's stomach was already tied up in knots, and the way that he smiled at her only made those knots tighten. Hugging Oliver had been nicer than she'd expected, and she'd probably enjoyed it more than she should have. She blamed it on her affectionate nature; Felicity loved hugs, both giving and receiving them, and she had been raised in a family that was big on hugs. That love of hugs had transferred over to her friends as well. Oliver and Digg were probably the only two people in Felicity's life whom she did not regularly hug, and even after almost two years with them she still found the deficit hard to accept. In many ways, the two men were her closest friends – huge parts of her life – and she had a hard time not hugging them profusely. Although she thought that it would probably be okay to do in the case of Diggle, because she and John had a much easier relationship than she and Oliver did. In fact, Felicity went ahead and resolved to try and get John used to hugging her.

"Thank you," Oliver replied.

"You're welcome. I'm gonna go now – I want to swing by my apartment before heading … well, you know."

"You'll have to turn the elevator on again," he informed her; she nodded in acknowledgement.

Oliver watched her rise to her feet; sometimes it still surprised him that someone who was prone to (rather entertaining) rambles that often resulted in awkward situations could be so graceful on her feet. He tried not to track her movement toward his office door, but it was difficult; he had always recognized and appreciated – silently – that Felicity was a beautiful woman, but now it was more than an objective observation. Now, Oliver knew that he found her exceedingly attractive, in a very personal sort of way.

"Oliver?"

He swept his gaze to the glass door of his office, where Felicity was poised with the door pushed half open and her eyes on him.

"Thanks – for the hug. I needed that."

Oliver was a man of few words; there were a multitude of thoughts that crossed his mind every day that he did not voice, for various reasons. He had learned to play it close to the vest, so he wasn't sure why his next words slipped out; perhaps it had something to do with that other integral truth that he had so recently discovered.

Felicity may have been a huge vulnerability for him – a beautiful weakness – but he was willing to work around that, even if a large part of him felt that it was a bad idea. He had and was continuing to discover that where Felicity was concerned, he was willing to do a lot more than he'd previously realized.

Oliver was a selfish man; he wanted to be a part of her life, and keep her as a part of his, in whatever capacity he could – even if it made him vulnerable.

Just once, he allowed a snippet of his thoughts to manifest themselves in words.

"So did I."

He felt the press of her body against his long after she was gone.