She woke up with a start. Something had fallen over and she panicked a little bit. Until she realized that she had left the window open and the breeze had knocked her picture frame over. After righting the picture, she stepped to the window and breathed in the cool night air. For a moment the city seemed quiet, almost peaceful. It didn't take long for that beautiful illusion to be shattered by the sound of a cop car zooming by on its way to the Glades. She took a deep breath and she had that wonderful feeling you get when you wake up and you know you were dreaming about something amazing you just can't remember what it was. She loves those dreams, it's like a part of her heart is keeping a secret from her. As she gazed out at the lights she tried to put herself back in the right frame of mind for sleeping but she knew that probably wasn't going to happen. She glanced over at the clock and realized that her alarm would be going off in less than an hour anyway so why not get a head start on the day.
First things first. Coffee. The smell of fresh brewed coffee graced her as soon as she stepped out of the shower. With coffee as her motivator, she quickly got dressed and blow-dried her hair. With her blond curls finally tame she moved on to makeup. She liked her makeup simple, except for her lips. Maybe it was to make up for all the black she wore in college but her lipstick was always bright and fun. By the time she was caffeinated and ready to go her phone was chiming out news updates and traffic alerts. Apparently her early jump start on the day wasn't going to get her into work early.
A few hours later, she was busy filling out the last report on the server crash in the accounting office. And she was looking forward to taking her lunch break as soon as she was done. That's when she heard it, her name, rolling beautifully off the tongue of what could only be the most intriguing man in the city. She looked up into the face of the one and only Oliver Queen. She could feel herself talking but she had no idea what she was saying until she heard the word "dead" come out of her mouth. And a few mortifying babbles later her brain finally caught up with what she hoped was a coherent end to whatever catastrophic sentences had been coming out of her mouth. She had to turn away and count, only belatedly realizing that her reprieve from embarrassment was bound to be short lived if she had to look at him again. And she knew she had to look at him. When she did, she found herself strangely relieved. She looked him directly in the eye and saw something there, only for a second. It was a look that could have been confusion or recognition or maybe a bit of both. Like when you see someone you know but don't know how you know them. And there was a smile that ghosted his lips. It wasn't the look she had been expecting, that one usually looked like exasperation. Before she could quantify what kind of response would create that look on Oliver Queen's face, it was gone. It gave her the same feeling she had woken up with this morning. The feeling of your heart keeping secrets from you. By the time he left her office she was intrigued, his strange request to recover as much of the hard-drives data as possible notwithstanding.
It's been years now. And he still looks at her the same way he always did, because he saw his soul in her that day. His soul was the secret her heart had been keeping and that is the secret they keep from the rest of the world. Every lingering glance or contented sigh is them keeping the secrets they have seen in each other's souls. Secrets they never knew they were keeping.