Author's Note: I wrote this drabble during winter hiatus and it is a tad melancholy. I keep thinking I can I get to a happier ending, Olicity is my ship after all, but it's not really happening. So … sorry?

Inigo Montoya Speaks the Truth

The first time Oliver Queen said he loved her it included a qualifier – "I love you … do you understand?" – because it had been a ploy. She had challenged him to out think Slade Wilson. Though she had been tempted she never asked Oliver how he devised his plan. Not that it was a bad one. It made sense when she thought about it. Slade wanted to take everything Oliver loved away from him. His mother's love, his sister's faith, his father's company, his mission to save Starling and most of all: the woman Oliver loved. Felicity understood the logic of it all, but what she'd been unable to grasp is why Slade would believe even for a moment that Oliver was in love with her.

Felicity knew Oliver cared about her. They were friends, partners. He trusted her with his secrets and his mission, with pieces of his past. He relied on her; and, even though there had been moments when he had been obtuse and careless with her, she never truly doubted that Oliver valued her.

The leap from that to being the woman Oliver loved, especially considering his relationship with Sara had barely ended, had been huge in Felicity's mind. Not that she got to voice that opinion. Oliver had simply asked her to come with him and she did, without reservation. If he told her beforehand about his plan to out maneuver Slade she would have a fought him on it. There was no way Slade, or anyone else for that matter, would believe that Oliver Queen or the Arrow would be in love with her.

She had not been able to fathom why Slade believed the ruse, she only been grateful (and admittedly terrified) that he did.

The next time Oliver expressed the sentiment it had been backwards. Saying it, without really saying it after kissing her all but senseless. "Don't ask me to say that I don't love you."

He'd broken her heart and them before they ever had a chance. Instead of love being their beginning it was their end.

She nearly hated him for that.

He alluded to his feelings for her after the incident with Cooper. "You know how I feel about her." She'd been tempted to retort: No, actually I don't. How could he possibly feel that way, the way that she felt about him, and keep her at arm's length? She'd given him the benefit of the doubt after Isabel and his misguided belief that he couldn't be with someone he actually cared about because of the life he led.

He had to learn that is was possible to care about someone and be in a romantic relationship with them. Even though it hurt – so much – seeing him with Sara actually made her happy. Well eventually it did, because she meant it when she told him that he deserved better. Sara was a thousand times better than Isabel; she was capable of actual human emotion after all and more importantly of caring for Oliver.

Whatever growth his relationship with Sara allowed had been blown away during their disastrous date. The implied feelings he expressed weeks later only served to hurt her. What good were they if he was unwilling to act on them? He made his choice and telling her, even so allusively, that he loved her made Felicity ache with all the what ifs between them.

What if he hadn't asked her out?

What if their dated hadn't been so rudely interrupted?

What if Oliver could accept that it was her life and her decision and be with her in spite of the danger their work brought into their lives?

The what ifs nearly killed her.

"I love you." When Oliver spoke those three little words before leaving to face Ra's al Ghul she felt everything come to a startling stop. Her heart, her breathe, her mind. It wasn't because it was the first time Oliver said he loved her out right. No what stopped her cold, making it impossible for her to respond, was the fact that when he said it, she didn't really hear the words but his tone of voice which wasn't telling her he loved her, but goodbye.

It was like going back full circle to that night when they faced Slade Wilson. I love you and he left. I love you and we cannot be together. I love you, goodbye. His 'I love you' didn't mean what he thought it did. Of course then, neither did her words to him, "I told you that once we talked, it would be over."

Their something could not be over because it never truly began. So she kept quiet and watched him walk away from her, because that's what he had been doing since the first time they met.