Oliver Queen had always been a legend to Felicity. He was larger than life in more ways than she really knew how to consider. She could still remember the first time she'd heard the story of Oliver Queen. She'd been at QC barely a month when she saw a picture of him and his father hanging in the same board room that she'd been interviewed in. His hair was atrocious, but there was something sincere in his smile. But, that was quickly disposed of as soon as someone saw her looking and the tragic story was then spat out faster than she could process. No one had even known Sara's name, but they'd all known the basics. Girlfriend's sister drowns with him in the middle of the China Sea. It'd seemed sad, even then, that people talked about it using words like karma and deserved.
The thought of Sara tore at her chest now as she stood in Oliver's office- well, it was her office, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she was a little girl playing dress-up and soon Oliver would walk in and she would go back to the EA desk. Sara had burned brightly, and she hadn't deserved to die. Not on that gambit, and not being shot with arrows until she fell off the top of a building. Sara deserved honor and dignity. Sara deserved a happy ending. Didn't they all deserve happy endings? The skyline was beautiful at night, she could almost forget how it'd been destroyed, not once, but twice in just as many years. Starling had rebuilt itself. It'd bandaged the cracks, and kept moving. Felicity felt mocked. She closed her eyes, and all she could see was Oliver. Her Oliver. The Oliver that could swoon any woman with his unwavering charm and smile, even when it was forced. The Oliver that didn't know how to get off Lian Yu even in the comfort of his own home. The Oliver that'd saved her life countless times. The Oliver that barely flinched when being shot, but crumbled at the thought of someone he cared about being hurt. Even the Oliver that'd watched both of his parents die in front of him, and still managed to keep moving. He was all of those things, and it annoyed her that he didn't even understand how that could be.
Felicity was sitting in the same board room with his picture when news broke that he'd been rescued. It was on the front page of every newspaper and website, but Felicity could never stop wondering about the girl. Sara. Not that it mattered then. Her life was never going to intertwine with his. She worked at his family's company, but even if all of the stories about him were exaggerated, she didn't see him ever walking into her tiny cubicle of an office.
Except, of course, that was exactly what happened. He'd barged into her life that day with that horrible cover story about his coffee shop being in a bad neighborhood. Felicity doubted Oliver had ever actually been in a bad neighborhood. But she couldn't deny that she'd appreciated the challenge, and all of the ones that followed. She didn't care if they were shit stories. She loved computers, but sometimes her work was mind-numbingly boring, and she missed having something to crack open, something to solve. The mysteries reeled her in every time, and the more time she spent with Oliver, he became the biggest mystery of all.
Sometimes, she thinks she should have walked away that very first day in the Foundry. She thinks that her life may have needed some excitement, but it didn't need the pain that leaked out of every single pore of Oliver's body. The pain of the past, the pain of the present, and most notably, the pain of the future. No matter where Oliver was looking, pain was branded in the irises of his eyes, and it broke her. It shattered her to the point it felt like self-mutilation to even meet his gaze.
"Felicity." His voice rattled the floor beneath her, and the instinct to leave his office was so strong that she had to lock her knees to stand still. She was now VP of Palmer Technologies. She was in her office, and she would be damned if she was going to be made to feel small by anyone, but especially not by her stupid self. It was then that she realized that Oliver had never come to her office since she started working there with Palmer, and suddenly she was angry. Irate even.
"Oliver, now is not a good time." She turned towards him, her finger going to trace the line of the necklace that was no longer around her neck, yet she could still feel the weight. Could still feel the warmth of Ray's hands as he unclasped it, and his lips when he'd kissed her. She was so sick of being told how amazing she was before being left behind. She hated even more how much she blamed herself. She was better than that. She was stronger than that. And yet.
Yet, she didn't protest when Oliver didn't obey her request to leave. And then she realized that he was holding the fern in one hand, and a cup of coffee in another.
"Felicity, I…" He shifted his weight, and she watched as his eyes settled on the one picture in the entire office. It was of Oliver and Digg on the plane back from Lian Yu. They were on top of the world. Oliver was smiling at her like she was his own personal hero, and she'd taken a picture on her phone because she wanted to remember that feeling. She wanted to remember that and not the feeling of his "I love you" being ripped from her chest through the tip of a syringe filled with mirakuru anecdote.
Seconds, minutes, what felt like hours passed in agony before he looked at her again, and this time he was standing too close and the fern was brushing against her arm. She couldn't do this. She couldn't listen to another speach about maybes and making confessions indirectly that didn't give her anything to hold onto. She was so tired of going to bed at night with nothing but ghosts of shoulder brushes and longing looks that didn't equal anything tangible. Felicity wanted tangibles and definitive direct confessions that she didn't have to second guess. "I wasn't going to come here again. I didn't want a repeat, but.."
"Again?"
He cleared his throat, looking around her office like he was expecting his own ghosts to come out and get him. She wondered what ghosts of memories haunted him here, exactly. She had a year of memories here, but he had a lifetime.
"You were…." He stared down at her lips, and Felicity's skin burned at what that meant. He shook his head and handed her the cup of coffee. "Here. I thought you might need this." He sat the fern on her desk, and she doesn't know what she's supposed to do, so she takes a sip of the coffee. It's cold.
She wanted to apologize. She wanted to open her mouth and let a rush of bumbling words fall out that would somehow hopefully make him smile, and she could avoid that whole conversation, but she bit down her lip instead because she didn't owe him an apology. He'd barely just gotten the words out a few hours ago to Crazy Cupid about how he had to be alone. That was his choice, but it wasn't hers. She wouldn't let him have control over this. Not anymore.
"You terrify me, Felicity." He tilted his head and stepped closer to her, but she was already perched on her desk, so she looked down at his shoes to not look at his eyes. "You terrify me because you make me realize that time doesn't play to my whim. You told me you weren't going to wait for me to die in the Foundry, and I didn't want to believe you. I didn't- I couldn't imagine a future you weren't in." He placed his hands on both sides of her neck, his thumbs acting as a brace to keep her head up, and she could no longer ignore the numerous ghosts of their pasts that both pushed her towards him just as much as they pulled her away.
"I meant it, Oliver. No more maybes. No more sorrys. No more confessions with opposite intentions. I need you in my life, but I will walk away if I have to. You promised me I would never lose you. You promised." Tears spilled out of her eyes, and she hated how effortlessly he wiped them away as if it was just as important as his missions to save the city. She hated how he made her feel like that maybe was the only thing that kept him going when it was the thing that made her feel like she was drowning.
"You told your mom we weren't friends." Flashes of Oliver's face meeting her mother popped up unbidden, and it stung worse than it should. She didn't know how to explain Oliver to anyone, much less her mother. He was Oliver, but his name encompassed so many things that she would never be able to explain to her mom. She hadn't asked her mom about what she thought about the Arrow showing up to save them. Her mom hadn't brought it up, and she couldn't think of anything to say besides please don't tell anyone it was Oliver. Please remember I saved myself. Please remember that you raised me to want more than to be saved by a hero in a mask. Please remember how Dad walked away.
"Is that what we are, Oliver? Friends?" She felt like she'd been struck by lightning. The pain was worse than when she'd been shot, and it was magnified as his hands trailed up into her hair. She'd taken her hair down hours ago, and she sighed as he ran his hands down the length of her hair, her neck arching back as he got stuck in the matted tangles of her curls.
She could feel his breath against her skin as he stepped closer and she waited for his lips to descend on her next, but they never did, which forced her to open her eyes.
"I told you once there was no choice to make when it came to you. It's still true. If my options are to be with you or without you, I'm going to choose you, every time."
"But you said…"
"Please tell me I'm not too late." He pleaded. She grabbed onto his wrists, hating the resistance that was building in the base of her throat.
"Is this because of Ray? You can't do this just because you don't like me kissing another guy. I will not be the rope in a grown man's game of Tug of War."
"No. This is because regardless of what outfit I am wearing, you are the best part of all. You deserve to be happy, and I want to be the one to make you happy, Felicity."
He barely got her name off his tongue before she pushed herself onto her tip toes and pulled at the scruff of his beard. Her lips outlined the shape of his, but still she didn't kiss him, relishing the feel of his racing breaths as if he'd just chased down a bad guy through the city instead of talking to her about what he was so terrified to want.
"Tell me." She copied his movements, pushing her fingers through the prickles of his hair. He bent down then so she could reach him, and the smile that he gave her was everything she'd ever wanted from him. It was everything she was always too afraid to hope to see when he was looking at her.
"You aren't my friend, Felicity. You are my everything." He grinned at her, and she watched as the fractured pieces of lights in his eyes started to correct themselves.
"Tell me." She pulled at his hair.
"I love you." She kissed him then, grinning as his beard tickled her skin. She didn't pull away until she had no other choice.
"Do you understand?" She asked, and as the Oliver she knew best came back to the surface, he didn't say anything, choosing to kiss her into silence. She took that as a yes.