"Oliver! Oliver Jonas Queen- what the fracking Hell is this?" Felicity was storming past Oliver's new assistant- some cute little brunette who looked like she could barely be out of high school… something to stew over later- now was the time to focus. Now was the time to yell and scream and use those big, fancy SAT words that got her into MIT on a full scholarship at the age of 16. The little mouse of an assistant was standing up, trying to tell her that she couldn't go into his office- the Mayor was on a call. Frack that.

She flung the door to his office wide open and saw Oliver stand up while still on his phone, looking as though he was going to smile and say hello, but then he saw the look on her face and rethought it. Speaking into the phone he murmured something about calling back, office emergency- it didn't matter. His assistant simpered into the office behind Felicity, trying to apologize for the interruption.

"I'm so sorry Mr. Mayor, but she just stormed past me- I'm sorry…" He held up his hand and flashed his million dollar smile and gorgeous baby blues at her- causing her to light up like a Christmas tree on… well, Christmas- Felicity's poetic side didn't seem to be at its best right now, being clouded by her righteous anger.

"Don't worry about it Lyssa. is welcome here anytime." He took one more look at Felicity's face, fury written all over it. "But I have a feeling this isn't strictly a social call, I think I'm going to wish I had a drink in a few minutes- would you mind pulling a bottle of my scotch down and a few clean glasses?" She nodded and left, shutting the door behind her.

"Cute kid- nice to see that you're helping her get her student service hours for high school."

"Lyssa? Yeah, she's a life saver, organized and very good at her-"

"And what is with that name- Lyssa? I mean, could you be anymore obvious?" She was rambling now, but sometimes a good rant was actually very much warranted and this was one of those times. "I mean, sure you trade in a blonde for a brunette, and she's all tiny and adorable, but come on- we both know one embrace and her neck would likely snap. And that's fine, that's YOUR staffing problem, but come the fuck on- Lyssa? Could that be any closer to Felicity?" She knew at this point she wasn't making her point as clearly or as articulately as she had planned, but that tiny hottie with the rocking body was definitely making her forget the original purpose of this visit.

"Felicity, is there something I can help you with? Not that I don't enjoy getting screamed at for my staffing choices." He was actually trying to hide a smile.

Seriously? She had to stop herself from smiling. This was not cute, this was NOT about her, this was absolutely NOT jealousy or anything to do with that stick outside of his office. No, this was about the letter that came in the mail today.

Right. The letter. That's why she was here and yelling.

She moved closer to his desk, waving some kind of official-looking document in his face- it looked like it had the Seal of the City stamped on the top of the letterhead but he couldn't tell for certain until she stopped waving it in his face and let him actually read it.

"When the hell were going to tell me Oliver? What the hell did you think you were going to do when I found out? Did you honestly believe that I was going to be grateful that you did an endrun around me and I would be oh so glad and weepy in your arms? That I would be happy that it all worked out and we're going to end happily ever after? That I was going to just change my name and get on waiting lists for preschools and suddenly forget everything that happened between us?

"I mean, I was just starting to think I had overreacted, that maybe I actually could trust you and maybe we could move forward- that I hadn't been fair to you or the situation, that I really should have been more grateful for everything you did for me when-" Any sign of amusement that had been on his face was gone and his reaction was mixed with absolute bewilderment and more than a little fear.

"Felicity, I'm really trying to follow this conversation, but so far all I know is that you really don't like my assistant, or at least you don't like her name; and that you think I did something sneaky and underhanded to try and win you back- but I didn't." He moved towards her, around his desk, so close she could feel his breath on her face. He switched to that deep, growly voice he used when he was going to say something particularly wonderful, that voice that made her slightly weak in the knees and wishing she had a benzo or two around. "I told you, I love you and I would do absolutely anything to win you back; but I promise, I've been above board. I've sent flowers, I've tried to take you to dinner, I've brought overly expensive Bordeaux to your apartment at completely inappropriate times of night- but I've been very upfront and honest about it all. I swear, Ms. Smoak, I've been a good boy." And dammit, that smile was back. Damn that smile- it always got her in so much trouble. Concentrate- focus. Ms. Smoak, that shocked her into action.

"Don't you mean Mrs. Queen?" And then she slammed down the document she had been waving, slammed it so hard onto the desk she winced as her open palm hit the surface. The slight twitch in her face would have amused him a lot more if he wasn't so distracted by the sheet of paper. He picked it up- it was from the City- the City Clerk's office actually.

To: Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak:

As you may know, three months ago, tragic events unfolded in Star City. Due to these extreme and catastrophic events, it was necessary to immediately halt any non-emergency programs and tasks, leading to a temporary closure of the city records office. During this time a great deal of paperwork was delayed in being processed and finalized, for which we apologize profusely. This letter serves as confirmation that your marriage certificate has been filed with the city, the IRS and the Social Security Bureau. Again, we sincerely apologize for the delay. Please accept our sincere best wishes in your marriage."

Enclosed were three copies of a marriage certificate that had been stamped and sealed by the city.

He looked up at her, not comprehending what he just read. "What does this mean?"

"What do you mean what does this mean? I know you aren't exactly Albert Einstein, but I'm pretty sure you're capable of reading and processing the information that according to the city, to the state and to the fracking United States government- you and I are united in holy matrimony- man and wife. Have been, in fact, for months!"

It was at that moment that Lyssa knocked on the door and entered with a new bottle of Glenmorangie 15 and two clean rocks glasses. The tension in the air was obvious and the poor assistant seemed unsure whether she should continue forward or retreat instantly and hide under her desk- so she just left the items on the table nearest the door and bolted. With one last look back at her boss and the angry blond woman, she knew not to get between them and this fight, no matter what.

As the door shut, with Felicity's death stare focused laser-like on him, Oliver slumped into his chair behind his desk, barely acknowledging that she was in the room- staring at the paper as though he could change what it said with his mind.

"How… how did this happen?" His throat felt dry, he was hoarse as he spoke. He stood again, feeling not entirely grounded and moved to pour himself a finger of scotch, which he knocked back in one gulp. He began to pour himself another, but looking back at the paper, he thought twice and poured a double.

"What do you mean how did this happen? You're the goddamn Mayor of this town, AND the person who insisted on that sham wedding AND the person who-"

"That's enough Felicity, I get it." He was pale, he looked up at her, beaten down and defeated.

She looked at him, her lips pursed, her face tilted slightly to the side as she tried to process this. He took pity on her and poured her a double- she didn't usually drink scotch but he had a feeling today would be an exception.

"Wait, do you mean you really didn't know? This IS actually some kind of horrific cosmic fuckup and the Universe DOES have it out for me?" She moved to pour herself a generous scotch before collapsing into the chairs across from his table. There were tears in her eyes, tears he had seen her cry a few too many times for his peace of mind, but she didn't seem able to stop it. "I'm cursed. That's the only answer. I must have done awful things in some previous life." She looked to her drink, slugging about half of it back as she stared blankly out the window of his office.

"Well, I'm glad to know how you feel about our marriage, Mrs. Queen." He wasn't really sure how to react to the news, but he was determined to keep the emotion out of his voice as much as possible, she wasn't paying any attention, he took a breath and tried again. "I'm absolutely baffled Felicity- truly, I am. But I will look into it, I will. Look- theoretically, these people all work for me, it should be simple enough for me to explain that there was some kind of misunderstanding and have it taken care of. Ok?"

She looked at him- weighing whether she should trust him. "Fine. Just do it fast, ok?" And with that she turned and left the room, leaving Oliver there, very much like a befuddled simpleton clinging to a piece of paper as though it were a life preserver in a violent storm.

Two days later Felicity entered the lair to Oliver boxing against some kind of punching bag that rocked over and almost fell down whenever he struck it particularly hard- and he was hitting it pretty damn hard. He had music playing as he danced around the bag with no gloves on- something loud and fast and powerful. Felicity stopped briefly to allow herself to enjoy the sight of him without his shirt on, sweating and weaving in and out, away from then closer into his "opponent." But all too quickly the song ended and he looked up and noticed her standing there.

"Oh, hi. Sorry- I didn't hear you come in- I guess the music was pretty loud." Before the next song came on, he moved over to turn it off and looked back at her.

"It's fine. You know me, I love to see my husband keeping it tight." They both smiled for a second and then she was back to all business mode.

"Speaking of, husbands, is it done? Were you able to figure out the problem and get it taken care of?" Oliver looked at her, pulling on a gray henley shirt as she sat down at her Command Station- mostly so he wouldn't have to look her in the eye as he explained.

"Well, I think I got to the bottom of what happened. I spent a lot of time with the City Clerk and with the City Attorney and…"

"Annnd? Why does it sound like that and has a but to it? A large but? Like Sir Mix-A-Lot would sing about it kind of big but?" He walked to the other side of the training area to get himself a bottle of cold water, wanting to make sure he had a little distance between them as he explained.

"Well, it's like this. In the US, states are allowed to make up their own individual marriage laws, and many of them allow their cities or counties to do that, rather than be dictated to. So, we apparently have some of the looser laws in the country in terms of process. What you need to do is apply for a license together, as a couple- signing it at that time, saying you're both planning to marry and someone official will be blessing it and signing off on it in the near future. That person will then send the now official license into the City, who processes it and and sends the couple the official marriage certificate."

"But Oliver, neither of us ever signed anything!"

"Actually, Felicity, we did. Remember? Once we set the date we went to the County Clerk's office and applied for a license- that's when we signed it. I gave the license to the officiant when we booked the wedding with her and I guess that neither of us thought to tell her that the wedding was actually just one big…"

Sudden realization flashed across her face, understanding, her eyes widening to the size of saucers. She stood suddenly, pushing the chair she had been sitting on far away as she turned to face him. "What? No no no no no no. Bad, Oliver, this is VERY bad! We're married? You mean this isn't just some horrible clerical error or ridiculous mistake?" She couldn't look at him, for which he was very grateful, so she couldn't see the pain behind his eyes. Then she whirled back at him,

"But wait, we didn't say the words!" He looked back at her with one eyebrow arched in question. "The words, the magic words- you know, "love, honor, obey, sickness and health and all of that 'I do!" crap."

"Felicity, it's called a Declaration of Intent- and it's VERY subjective, up to the officiant... and since we were so violently interrupted… it seems like the officiant just felt like giving two kids who were young and in love a break after all that drama- so she just signed the damn thing and mailed it in."

"And that's legal? She can just do that? She can just sign a piece of paper and tell two people- any two people, that they're just stuck listening to each other's corny jokes and tolerating their snoring and their enjoyment of terrible martial arts films and their obnoxious love for beets and Russian vodka- for the rest of their lives?" Felicity was spinning out- she was pacing, her heels clacking on the floor, her mind reeling and her pony tail swinging back and forth. Oliver had to breathe in, breathe out, try and keep it controlled.

"Well, I suppose to most people, applying for the license is a good enough show of faith that-"

She changed course abruptly and instead of pacing across the platform, she moved straight to her computers and within seconds had multiple screens pulling up databases and making queries. She was muttering under her breath and Oliver heard "meshuggener" and "oye vey" and a few other choice words in Yiddish- when the hell had she begun to speak Yiddish?

"YES! Registered in the database, of course! I can hack into Star City and wipe out the record of it… I can hit Social Security and the IRS while I'm at it, it will be just like it never happened and we aren't married and it's going to be fine." She was smiling, practically giggling at her screens. "Then you can put on your mask and your hood and everything and just run on up to the City Records and get any of the physical evidence and destroy it. I can work on this end while you do that and no one needs to know anything about this."

"You know, Felicity, I am the Mayor- I could probably get my hands on the files without the costume and subterfuge."

"That's right!" She lit up, looking hopeful once again. "Yes! Good! You're the Mayor! We can use that, you can just request to see the files and then 'accidentally' (she put that in quotations marks) see that they're destroyed!"

"Well, you see, about that…"

"How are we coming to ANOTHER but? Seriously, Queen- you're in, you're out, but I'm telling you a few keystrokes, your mask and then bippity boppity boo, it's done!"

"Did you just quote Cinderella when explaining your master evil plan?" He was almost smiling now and that was not something she could really have right now- it was a serious distraction- she needed to stay focused on getting this done; NOT on spending anytime thinking about the way he had said 'Mrs. Queen' or the way that his abs had been particularly chiseled from all the workouts he'd been going through lately to kill time and work off… energy- least of all the look in his eyes, the look of anguish, when she had been so excited to have this done and over with.

He came over and sat on the desk next to her, his knees almost touching her elbow as she typed furiously- he would never cease to be amazed at the skills of her tiny little fingers… whoa, not the right way to phrase it- even in his head that thought wreaked havoc with his hormones and imagination.

"Well, as it would turn out, my asking questions seems to have made people curious about the why and wherefore. So, a little digging by a few reporters and what do you know? The Star City Ledger has the certificate. They know. Well, I suppose it's more accurate that they were reminded about it. I suppose everything that happened with Genesis, with Dahrk, the rebuilding of the city- somehow the wedding of two local celebrities got lost in the chaos, which is awfully surprising considering the fact that there is yet ANOTHER Kardashian reality show just announced." Why did he know that? Trying to connect with the electorate was genuinely starting to take its toll on him, he decided.

"Ok, so the papers might have questions- we've dodged this kind of thing before. We'll tell them the events made us re-think things and that we needed to slow down and-"

"Felicity, someone just challenged me in the Mayoral race. And, I'm vulnerable. This was only an interim appointment, I have 6 more weeks before its official and I was just about to try and launch not only proposal for how to deal with the giant sinkhole that is now the Glades, but the increase in the police force, the disaster relief funding from FEMA, the NIH/NRC money we were going to use to help the First Responders… but the man running? He doesn't want any of that! He wants to create a militarized police force, he wants to scale back and refuse any federal or state aid in rebuilding, concerned over the overreach of big government. He believes that what happened to the Glades was probably justice for people living sinful lives without contributing to society." His look told her he was serious, this was not the kind of guy anyone would want in office, especially not a team of vigilantes who were trying to keep the body count as low as possible.

"So… what? It's a clerical error. That's all we have to say! Everyone gets on board with a government bureaucracy making peoples' lives harder. "

"A clerical error that a wedding happened accidentally? That doesn't exactly show me in my best light- it would be like we ran off to Vegas and got hammered and made stupid decisions. That isn't really what a city is looking for in a leader- especially not now! What other possibilities are there. What, there is some kind of reason for an instant split- why? There are a lot of things I'm willing to do for you- almost anything, actually- but I am NOT willing to let people speculate on whether I cheated on you, on whether I fully loved you, to question what we meant to each other, once upon a time."

"Fine- say that I cheated on you, or I didn't love you…" His blue eyes went black, instantly.

"No!" He barked it at her, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

"Oliver- its sympathetic, the voters will love it- you'll be-"

"I said no. I'm sorry Felicity, there are a lot of things I'll do for you, but there is no way I'll agree to either of those- because I know, I know, with everything in me, neither of those things are true. I know, that even while you've decided I'm not your forever and always, you are mine- you are what has kept me alive and whole; you are what brought me out of the darkness I had been drowning in for long, and I cannot, I will not for even a second, question your goodness or your love." He was struggling against the flood of emotions trying to break the dam he had built inside of him. He looked at her, tears in his eyes, his heart pounding.

"I may never have your love or trust again, but I need you to understand that I can't even entertain the thought that what we had- those nights in Bali, the home in Ivy Town, the all-encompassing and absolute love that we shared…" The tears were streaming now- but he had to get this out, he had to say it- it was choking him, killing him to keep it inside. He whispered as he spoke, "But all of my good moments, all of my best self, all the good that I have ever done or ever will do- if not for you and your love, none of them would have happened. None of this would have been possible." One hand cupped her chin and he allowed to fingers to graze against her cheek, his heart pounding and her breath hitched. "I can't- I can't pretend that any of it was a lie. Please, I'm begging you, don't ask me to."

He pulled her to him briefly in a tight embrace and tenderly kissed the top of her head, in that way she knew and loved so much. She was crying, but refused to raise her head so that he could see- but she didn't need to worry. As she stared at the platform's floor, noticing it was blurring from her tears, she heard the heavy sounds of his footsteps walking away from her, up the steel stairs and out the door- the slamming of which brought her back to the moment and the pain and the fact that he was gone, and she still had no idea what to do with that knowledge and hurt.