Felicity liked this new getting-badass thing, though she'd never admit it to Them. Working out had always been something she did sporadically, definitely in private, and only when faced with overwhelm too big for her brain to handle all on its own. She'd been such a head-person, not a body-person, for reasons, and for so long. Brainiac was her identity and she was proud of it.

But now she was around Body people, all the time. And overwhelm was a constant, since Autumn..well really since last spring, almost losing Oliver to Slade, then having him be hers for a total of three days around when Digg's baby was born, only to lose him again after their first half-date to… well, on a good day she called it PTSD from the always-violent deaths of so many of his loved ones. On a bad day she called it his stupid-ass codes of conduct and crap-rotten habit of self-blame.

So when Diggle gave her the side-eye one day in late Winter (as she was looking either about to explode in anger or dissolve into tears at her computer when Oliver and she had had one too many testy/overly formal exchanges) and asked casually if she'd like to come on a run with him, she'd nodded quickly, and stalked without talking to the bin where she kept her (not very used) training clothes.

And they'd run. Digg, a man of few words, let her know that he was happy to run easy, and not with Roy or Oliver, since being off and not sleeping with a baby – infants turned out to be harder on the body than soldiering, he said. She rolled her eyes at him, but kept running. When they looped around the reservoir and met the road that led back to the new lair, she'd slowed to walk and then stopped, both of them puffing with their hands on their knees. He asked (maybe a little bit cautiously), "how're you feeling?" She nodded her answer at first, and then managed, "Good. I feel good."

"Good." He shrugged off some straps from his back and offered her a straw. "You want water?"

She did, and drank while admiring the backpack, appreciating Sports Gear for the first time. "Nice." She said. "Handy."

Diggle took back his straw, nodding. After a minute he said, "Listen. I gotta start getting in some other training in starting soon. You want to maybe…spar sometime? We could go over what you learned last year, and start up some new moves?"

She pictured it in her mind, all the whining she'd done about how she was the Brains and not the Brawn of the operation (gesturing to the sweaty expanse of Digg and Oliver, all those acres of heaving, shirtless, man-nipply chest…laughing at the grinning fools she loved so much for thinking she could be a Body too). She swallowed the hollowness in her throat that warned about tears, just thinking about the ease of it all back then. "Yeah," she said, grateful to Diggle and his stoic face for not looking too surprised at her assent. "Sure. Let's do it."

And that's how bad-ass training had begun. It had been a couple of months now and Felicity felt her body responding now very differently than it had before. She liked the feel of it under her hands, noticing hardness where before it had just been skinny-noodle from computer-diet and showgirl genes. And she liked how it moved…she was faster now, and less easily winded when Diggle circled her on the mats in the back of their Bat (Arrow?) cave. She had even done the

She very much liked that her body seemed to helping her brain, a reversal that surprised the pants off of her. She'd found her sense of humor again, anyway, a little. She could banter with Ray, who'd taken her out on several dates, but who felt, after his first kisses, how not-available she really was. It was nice, so nice, to be on easy friendly terms with him again. Her babble switch was not so easily flipped around him, now that her body was calming her down. It turned that dating was just dating; it wasn't so awkward to discover that you didn't like someone that way after all.

But it was still awkward with Oliver. Less bad now: when Oliver stalked in and out, all tight control and polite misery, she didn't feel stabbed, or crazed. She felt stuff, alright, especially if he got close enough to smell, but she could turn it off enough to do work. As for him: it was his own fault things were awkward, his stuff that he'd have to deal on his own. Ignoring him seemed to be the best strategy for both of them.

"This time, come at my right, your left" Diggle said, breaking her thoughts.

They were training with sticks today: Wood-stick Wednesday she'd called it. "It's a Bo stick," Diggle started.

"Well there's no B-day of the week, so "woodstick" is what you get, Sensei!" she said, waggling her head at him.

"It sounds dirty." Diggle grumbled.

"That's your OWN dirty mind talking! It's either woodstick or hot body bo stickday" she laughed at him, then narrowed her eyes and came at his right, her left. After several seconds of struggle, she found herself on her back instead of the other way around.

"You're not so good on your left." Diggle said, grinning and extending his hand to help her up. "Let's work on it again."

He showed her, slowly, how to place her lunging foot to his side and get her stick behind his knee. She concentrated, her tongue tip between her lips like when she was chasing down good code, repeating the steps of the kata over and over so that she didn't hear Oliver as he began down the stairs on what she used to call his "quiet forest-feet".

"That's it!" Diggle said. "You got it. Let's try it faster, from starting positions."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Oliver paused in the dark. It had been a long time since he'd heard Felicity laugh. From the shadows of the stair, he watched his two friends below. Felicity was in braids (easier for somersaulting! She'd said when Diggle had pretended to pull on them like a gradeschooler) and – new workout clothes. You could see her shoes, neon green with pink laces, nearly glowing against the black mats, and (he inhaled at the sight) her workout top was short, pink, polka-dotted, and sweaty. He closed his eyes and blew out his breath forcefully.

When he chanced a look again, Felicity was bouncing from side to side like on the balls of her feet like Bjorn Bork while Diggle shook his head at her. "What, you're not ready for all this?" she called out to him.

Oliver's face flashed red. His heart began to hammer like he'd been running, and he sank to down to sit on the stairs. She wasn't talking to me, he reminded himself, (she never talks to me anymore stabbed through him). But he had heard those words before. She'd been in the hospital, broken ribbed and still bloody at the hairline. He was apologizing.

"Its not your fault." She'd said, glowering. He shook his head.

"No, you fucker, it's not. I CHOOSE what I do and WHO!" (she'd closed her eyes and shook her head angrily at the accidental innuendo of her always innuendo-ing tongue) "and you can't stop me!"

"It IS my—"

"If you say it's your fault so help me Oliver…"

"It is. And I can't risk you."

"Really Oliver. I'm not yours to risk. If you're JUST NOT READY FOR THIS than SAY SO!"

He'd cut her off, suddenly sure of what needed to be done to make her turn away. "That's right," he'd said. "You're not mine. I am not ready."

He'd closed down his face. The hardest thing he'd ever done. Turned on her, hearing her voice shaking with rage and hurt behind him, "You promised, Oliver. You promised to fight. And you aren't fighting for me...?" She was crying now, her angry voice shaking into tears. "How can you do that, Oliver? You're supposed to …I'm supposed to be your…" The door closed behind him, but he could still hear how sobs took her voice. He banged his head backwards on the door, then, hearing her cries escalate, had broken into a run and not stopped for a long, long time.

So Fall and Winter had dragged on, longer than he'd felt since Island time. He'd thought it was a miracle that she still remained at her computers here in the lair, though closed off to him completely. He knew she'd dated Ray, saw them friendly at QC when he came for meetings with the lawyers. (Tried not to ball his hands into fists when Ray touched her).

He didn't know what was going on with them now. But here today? She was laughing and joking, and that was…new. He cast his yes on Digg, life-saving hero as always. He'd fixed her. Oliver marveled at her there on the mat. She was flexible, like Shado always told him he needed to be. And sturdy! He rolled his eyes as that rebel voice in his brain helpfully supplied adjectives, sounding like the Ikea catalogue he used to read at Felicity's to fall asleep. Or maybe he hadn't broken her so completely after all his head whispered. He stood up on shakey legs.

"Alright, alright, Girl Friday, let's get up and go full speed!" Diggle said, taunting Felicity by spinning the Bo staff.

"It's Girl Wednesday, and OK!" she jibed. "You asked for it!" And, with a voice that rang shockingly loud to everyone, she attacked.

Oliver looked on what seemed for a second like the cloud-of-dust fighting that surrounded the Tasmanian Devil on Bugs Bunny. Feet, hands, sticks, were everywhere, and when it was over, both Digg and Felicity were on their backs, heaving, and Felicity was touching blood on her lip.

Oliver's heart started hammering again and he was halfway up to run to her when the voice in his head warned, You're going to have a fucking heart attack if you keep this up. Stop and fucking listen to her.

"Oh!" said Digg, "Oh Felicity I'm so sorry!"

She was laughing again. "It's ok Dig! I'm pretty sure I cracked myself with my own stick!"

"No." Dig said, shaking his head in embarrassment for her.

"Yes!" she giggled. "It's not your fault! And it was TOTALLY worth it – cuz I got you down all the same! High Five!"

Dig flopped back down on the mat for some more head shaking, and raised his hand for the high five. She was busy trying to line up her hand for it, and failing, when Oliver appeared in front of her, extending his hand and smiling a tiny, tiny smile.

"Nice job. You got him." He pulled her to her feet.

"I did." She said, too happy to resume stiltedness in his presence.

"You got yourself too, I see."

"Yep." She said, bowing a tiny bow. "Things happen. Especially to badasses like me."

"Yup." He smiled again at her lip. She was poking at it with her tongue. "Things happen..." he repeated. "Nobody's fault." he heard himself say.

That was different his brain said. And then that brain must have taken the wheel because he was going on, still: "Nope. Accidents happen. Bodies…collide. Nobody's fault." He clamped his mouth shut physically, willing his babble to stop.

He raised his eyes cautiously, chanced a look up at hers.

She was watching him in a little confusion, but met his gaze evenly, and then answered, a little bit cautiously, "No. Nobody's fault."

Something was happening to him: he felt like his body was being drained of some terrible poison. He smiled. She saw something was happening too, and stood very still when he lifted his hand to her and put his thumb gently over the cut.

The electricity of touching her, as always, warmed him and set his heart beating fast again. He raised his other hand to her cheek. When she tilted in to him, just a fraction, it was enough. He gathered her and crashed her into his chest. She held on to his broad back and hugged him back, and felt stupid for the tears that started welling and rolling down her nose, but she held on anyway. She felt him kiss the top of her head, which felt great. But then he was kissing her temple, then pressing a soft kiss on the spot right in front of her ear. She pulled back to look at him and was met with a kiss on her other temple, then her cheek. And then, while she looked at him, he dipped a little lower, and his lips ghosted across the cut on her lip.

Both of them stopped breathing. And then with a shuddering exhale, they crashed together again, in a kiss that was hungry and desperate and as long as it had been a long time coming. Hands were everywhere, Felicity reaching up to him as close as she could and when it wasn't enough he lifted her easily into his arms and she wrapped both her legs around his waist, still kissing him, tongues and teeth and the low sound of him growling what might have been her name if his mouth hadn't been so busy.

When they paused for some air, they rested forehead to forehead, still entwined.

"I've never heard you babble before." Felicity said. "It was my hot Body that did it, right? You couldn't help yourself around my bad ass kick assery and my new Abs."

She felt more than heard his laugh. "Yes Felicity. You kick ass, and you have (here he squeezed the part he was holding), a seriously hot body."

"I knew it. Kiss me again."

He did. But then he stopped, and she furrowed her brow. "But it wasn't that that changed."

"No?"

"No. Felicity." He sighed her name and she felt a flush through her whole body hearing it. "I think I just got it."

"You got…it? You got that everything is not your fault?"

"Uh huh. It's been hard, you know? I've heard you say it a million times but it wasn't until these last months of...Hell…that I got that maybe it's…true. You are the smartest person I know Felicity. I love you. How could I not listen to you?"

"Say that again."

"Which part?"

"All of the parts. The part about me being smart and having a hot body and how you've been in Hell and…the part about how you love me."

"I love you. You're smart. I've hated you hating me. I'm sorry."

"That's even better!" she said. "Now the part about being hot?"

He slowly raised her up a few more inches, and bent his head to her neck, pressing an open mouthed kiss there. "Felicity." He murmured into the hollow of her throat. "You've always been hot. Too hot for me to take."

"Even in glasses?"

"Especially in glasses…"

A cough made them startle at the same time, comically. Diggle was leaning on his stick, watching them with one raised eyebrow. "Alright now partners. I'm glad. Really glad. But you're not alone."

Felicity slid unwrapped her legs from Oliver and slid, slowly and with burning face, down his body to her feet. Noticing her hands were still on Oliver's chest she jumped them off and, not quite knowing what else to do, clapped them together and bowed to Diggle, Karate-style. "Thank you, Sensei! Um, are we done for today?"

Diggle smiled. "I am. I don't think you are." He raised his eyebrow again. "Get out of here. I'm going home."

They watched, both feeling kind of giddy and hollow and the kind of warm you get only when there's been making out already and there's way more to come, while Digg shrugged on his jacket. He jingled his keys as he walked up the stairs, and then they were alone. Feeling Oliver, so large and electric all along her side, Felicity threaded her fingers through his. "Do you want to go home too?"

Oliver looked down at their hands together, and then at her, eyes shining. "Home." He said. "Felicity. I think I've finally arrived."