She realizes that they're alone in the Foundry for the first time since their disastrous date.
"Where's Roy?" she asks hopeful.
"He had to go, his boss is not as understanding as yours. Diggle?"
"At home, Lyla is going crazy she needs to sleep so..."
"Right."
"Did Harper fess up?"
"Yes and he gave me a name: Alexander Pasterchek. I need everything you can find on him ."
He doesn't look at her and gives his orders like he has a hundred times before. Business as usual.
"It's so easy for you. "
"What is?"
"Going back to business like nothing happened." She should keep up the pretense, act as if everything's fine. Compartmentalize. The truth is she's never been good at that. Oliver however,...
"Felicity, now is not the time..."
"Yeah sure. Well you know what? You can look for this information yourself, even you should know how to use Google. I need some air."
When she comes back 2 hours later he's still in his Arrow suit, sitting on her chair.
"Don't tell me there is more than one Alexander Pasterchek living in Starling City."
"What?" He looks startled. It's not like him, he would have heard her 5 inch heels on the stairs.
"Are you ok? Something happened? Did you …?"
"No, Mr.. Pasterchek is on vacation in Paris. He comes back tomorrow."
Somehow relieved, she still can't shake the feeling something's wrong with Oliver.
"Listen, I'm sorry for taking off like this earlier. I had a long day and I shouldn't have taken it out on you. I mean I get it, the city should always come first and I shouldn't let my personal feelings interfere with our mission."
He stands up but doesn't say anything. He looks conflicted like he wants to tell her something but can't get the courage to actually say it.
"Oliver, you..."
"Letting you get taken by Slade was the hardest thing I ever had to do. "
She certainly was not expecting that.
"And that includes getting tortured for information and extract a bullet without anesthesia, so..."
They both smile lightly and the tension between them disappears. Instead another kind of tension takes its place.
"But this, letting you go, somehow it's harder. Because every single day I have to do it all over again. Every single day I have to resist every impulse in me that's telling me to forget about the danger and the risks and just kiss you senseless, ask you out on a date, build a life with you, but..."
"We can't."
"Seeing you, lying unconscious, bloody, hurt." He looks distressed and shakes his head as if he's trying to erase the image from his mind. "As hard as it is to let you go, I know it's nothing cause if anything like this happened to you again, I..."
She nods, she understands. She saw him lying unconscious, hurt, dying.
"So please Felicity, don't hate me."
"I don't hate you. That's the problem."
"Mine too."