Notes: Happy 2015! I hope this year brings all of you health, happiness and prosperity.

Here is the final installment of The Ties That Bind Trilogy. If you haven't already read The Ties That Bind and Lines In The Sand, I recommend you do so. I apologize this took me so long to publish. So far, season 3 has made it tough for me to keep this story on a happy track and Oliver promised Felicity a Year of Good Things and I'm determined to provide it. I hope you enjoy.

The Arrow characters and universe do not belong to me.

Oliver's breathing was getting faster and more erratic in her ear. The sounds of his exertion were distracting her from the task at hand and if she didn't focus on herself she'd never finish. Felicity did something she never did, she turned off her comm so she couldn't hear him as he fought. Her fingers moved frantically across the keyboard as she hacked into yet another member of the Starling City's elite's computer looking for evidence of corruption. The city's hard times had proven to be too tempting for those that knew how to make a fast buck on the backs of the less fortunate.

"Come on, Blondie." Arsenal said as he entered the office. "Our window's closing if we want to get out of here. This is your plan, remember?"

Felicity didn't look up from the monitor. "Relax. I need one more minute to complete the file transfer."

"Easy for you to say. You're not the one the boss is going to torture if anything happens to you." Roy stuck his head back out the office door. "We've gotta go, now." Addressing his partners, "We've got the package and we're heading to the rendezvous."

Felicity closed her connection to her servers at the lair and started the virus that would remove any evidence of her presence on the suspect's system. She put her hand on Roy's shoulder and followed him down the hallway. "Please, Oliver would never torture you." Roy snickered. "Okay, I'm sure he'd make you stand on one foot while balancing an arrow on your nose or whatever other ridiculous training the two of you get up to when I'm not around."

"Exactly my point. He is a taskmaster when he isn't pissed with me. Imagine what he'll do if he is." Roy put his hand out to stop her forward movement while he took a peek around the corner. "You better put your comm back on. He's freaking out that you're not responding."

Felicity flipped her comm back on, but before she could say a word, Oliver's voice was filling her ear, "What's going on? Why isn't she talking? What aren't you telling me?"

"I'm fine." She said interrupting his tirade.

"What happened? Was your comm damaged?" Oliver asked. Felicity could tell that he was running.

"I was getting distracted so I shut it off." She said, regretting the truth as soon as it left her mouth. She should've gone with malfunctioning comm. Roy turned and gave her a look that clearly said, Come on, I thought you were supposed to be a genius.

She could hear his jaw clenching. "You turned it off? What's the first rule for you being out in the field?"

"Don't ever tell the bad guy he's an idiot." She said as she followed Roy down a flight of stairs.

"Felicity." Oliver snapped.

"Dude, I'm pretty sure you said that was the number one rule after the last time." Roy winked at Felicity. Oliver had actually made that the number one rule three weeks ago when Felicity had been pinned down by gunfire as she tried to disable a firewall from inside the company they were targeting. She wasn't actually stupid enough to really call a person with a gun an idiot, it was all part of her plan. He was so busy trying to shoot the woman questioning his intelligence that he hadn't noticed the Arrow sneaking up behind him. Even after her reasonable explanation, Oliver still made it a rule.

"Roy." Oliver growled.

Felicity couldn't help but laugh when Diggle piled on. "I remember that too."

For the past six weeks that Felicity and Oliver had been dating, she and the rest of Team Arrow had decided the best way to handle his over-protectiveness was to tease him whenever he exhibited the behavior when it wasn't warranted. Often what drives us most crazy about a person is also why we love them the most. Feeling guilty that they were causing him distress, she decided to stop their teasing. "I'm sorry. Rule number one, never turn off my comm. I won't do it again."

"Hmph." He grunted in acknowledgment. "I'll see you in a few."

Felicity listened to the sound of him running, knowing every step was bringing him closer to her. She and Roy burst through the exit into the cool evening. A mist hung in the air and the night was cloaked in fog. The sound of approaching footsteps echoed around them. Roy pulled her down into a crouch as he scanned their surroundings. He made some hand gestures at her that made her roll her eyes. He sighed. "Right, I'll stay here," she whispered as she tucked herself behind a planter. Roy took off in the direction of the footsteps.

"I'm here," said Diggle. The sound of their van approaching had Felicity rising from her hiding place. As the headlights pierced the fog, Felicity turned to run and collided with a stranger. The man was tall and had a tight grip around her arms. In the darkness she could see that he was wearing a suit and tie and a dark blue trench coat that provided him protection from the light rain. He wore a fedora, but it was his face, or lack of a face that had Felicity swallowing a scream. An arrow whistled by her ear and embedded in the wall behind the man. His grip loosened and Felicity was stirred into motion by the sound of Diggle in her ear. "Go, go, go, go, go."

Felicity ran towards the van that was slowing down to match her speed. Two sets of hands reached out from the open side door and she was hauled inside as the van picked up speed. Oliver's arms crushed her into an embrace as Roy closed the door behind them. "Hey, are you okay? Did he hurt you?" Oliver asked with concern. His lips pressing against her forehead. "You're shaking." Oliver lowered her onto the bench.

"I'm fine. Just surprised to see him." Felicity said trying to give him a reassuring smile. "I was starting to think you guys were making up that we had another vigilante in town."

"I guess we're not the only ones chasing Barnaby Tuddle." Roy said as he lowered his hood.

"I'm getting sick of this guy turning up wherever we go." Oliver said. "Are you sure he hasn't hacked into our comm lines?"

Felicity turned her focus back to Oliver. "I'll check again but he shouldn't be able to. Only our receivers should be able to decrypt our signals - no one else should be able to hear us."

"Felicity, you've gotten closer to him than any of us. Would you recognize him if you saw him again?" Diggle asked as he calmly navigated the van through the city.

Felicity gulped audibly. "I'd know him if I saw him again, but I don't think I can say that I'd recognize him."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Oliver asked.

Felicity tightened her grip on her partner's hand. "Oliver, he didn't have a face."

xxx

They'd been back at the lair for ten minutes. Diggle had already gone home and Oliver and Roy were putting away their equipment. As soon as they arrived, Felicity had started running algorithms on the data she'd taken from Tuddle. There was nothing to do, but wait and she hated waiting. As she stared at the bar indicating the progress of her search, her mind began to wander. A lot had happened in the six weeks since Felicity and Oliver had confessed their feelings for one another, but a lot hadn't happened too. The closest the two had gotten to having sex was when Diggle interrupted with the news that Lyla had gone into labor. First it was the arrival of baby Sara who had kept Lyla in labor for twenty two hours. Oliver and Felicity didn't leave the hospital until they were able to see the baby and hug the new daddy. After, they returned to her place to sleep, but their heads had no sooner hit the pillows before an alert went off on her phone. Her searches had finally tracked Thea to Corto Maltese. Oliver, Diggle and Roy, with the assistance of A.R.G.U.S., immediately set off to bring her home. The shock of discovering that Thea had been with a not quite as dead as they thought Malcolm Merlyn had sent the team reeling. In order to convince Thea to come home, he'd been forced to reveal the truth about their father's death. Thea had returned, reluctantly, and Oliver was spending a lot of time with her, trying to undo whatever damage Merlyn had undoubtedly done. Felicity didn't begrudge Oliver spending time with Thea, but it had put a crimp in taking their relationship to the next level. Something that was becoming increasingly frustrating every time she watched a shirtless Oliver climb the salmon ladder.

To make things more complicated, the board had voted Oliver back in as the CEO. He was taking his responsibilities seriously and was working hard to restore both the reputation of the company and himself. He was pushing himself with long hours at the office and then out on the streets pursuing those that failed the city. Even after finishing his patrols, Oliver put in more hours as CEO. He was lucky to get four hours of sleep a night. Things weren't much better for Felicity. She'd returned to QC, but not as Oliver's Executive Assistant. Oliver made her Vice President of the Applied Science Technology Development group. Rumors continued to hound her that she only got her job because she was dating the boss. She no longer cared what the world thought. She knew what her true role was within QC and so did Oliver. In the end, that's all that mattered. Unfortunately for her sleep cycle, she was also spending three nights a week and her weekends at the university in order to finish up her project for Dr. Emil Hamilton before she arrived at the lair to direct their missions. Felicity no longer felt that she and sleep were on a first name basis.

The appearance of the new vigilante was also adding to the stress. So far, the new guy seemed like he was on their side, but without knowing his true motivation, they were all on edge. Something was going to have to give and Felicity worried that it would take a serious injury for Oliver to slow down. If he continued with his sleep deprivation she knew that it wasn't a matter of if he got hurt it was just a matter of when.

A gentle squeeze of her shoulder brought her back to the present. "Come on, let's get you to bed." Oliver said softly.

Felicity grinned at his unintended innuendo. "Promises, promises." She double checked that her system was running all of her queries before she grabbed her purse.

Oliver placed a gentle kiss on her lips as he pulled her in for a quick hug. "There's nothing I'd like more, except for the fact that I still need to prep for my meeting tomorrow morning with Walter and Grimes to go over the quarterly numbers to prep for the earnings call."

"Luckily for you, you have a girlfriend who annotated the heck out of the financials for you. You just need to read my notes tonight and I can quiz you on our way into the office tomorrow. I'll have you in bed in less than an hour." She said squeezing his hand as they climbed the stairs.

"Now who's making promises?" Oliver teased. "If I can get four hours of sleep tonight I might actually stay awake for the meeting."

"Oliver, why don't you take tomorrow night off?" Felicity said casually.

"Why? Do you have something planned?" He asked with a wink as he opened the passenger side door for her.

She waited for him to get in and start the car before she responded, "No, but I think you could use a solid eight hours of sleep."

"I need to take care of Tuddle tomorrow night." Oliver said through a yawn. "Why don't we plan on taking Friday night off together. I'll take you on a date- date and then I'll really get you into bed."

Felicity ignored his very tempting offer. "You're exhausted. Tomorrow night I'll probably still be amassing evidence and working with Laurel to identify what she needs to put him away. Roy and Diggle can take care of the patrol."

"Everyone's tired, Felicity. It isn't fair for me to take a night off when no one else is."

"Yes, everyone is tired, but you're more than tired. Do you want to know why I turned my comm off?" She took his silence as a, no, but continued anyway. "You sounded sluggish as you were fighting the guard. I was afraid you were going to get hurt and I couldn't listen."

"Okay," he said.

"Okay?" Skepticism flooded her voice. "You'll take tomorrow night off?"

"Yes, " he replied. "You're right, it took me way too long to take out the guard. Being tired makes you sloppy and being sloppy gets you killed. I'll take the night off." He waited for her to respond, but she sat in silence. "Felicity?"

"I don't know what to say. Whenever you're reasonable, I'm stunned into silence." She said trying to hide the grin threatening to break across her face.

"I promised you a year of good things and I haven't done a very good job this month. I figure getting injured or killed will be a surefire way to break that promise."

Since the night they learned baby Sara was about to arrive, Oliver had been true to his word. Even with all the crazy things happening around them, he still took the time every day to make sure that they were focusing on the positive. "We got Thea back. That's a very good thing and more than enough for this month." She said, placing her hand on his leg.

He grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips. He placed a kiss on her knuckles and said, "I love you."

True to his word, Oliver took the next night off from work. He was sitting on Felicity's bed in only his sleep pants, reading the latest projections for the completion of the new Robert and Moira Queen Applied Sciences building. Felicity leaned against her door frame, watching him read. His brow was furrowed in concentration and she knew he was displeased with what he was reading. She'd been displeased when she'd read it earlier that morning. The building was over budget, behind schedule and had run into some issues with structural integrity. Some of the building materials that had been purchased had turned out to be counterfeit and had to be replaced. "You're unhappy face is really making me regret suggesting blowing up the original building."

Oliver grinned and patted the spot next to him on the bed. "I'm not happy we're behind schedule, but we lucked out we found out the steel beams were not up to code when we did. If the building had been finished without discovering the problem first, a lot of people could've died, including you."

Oliver cupped her cheek and she kissed his palm. "Hey, I'm fine. We found out and now we're fixing it."

"That's not what has me worried." He leaned against her headboard and stared at the ceiling. "We can't be the only ones this crap was sold to. With all the rebuilding efforts going on in the city right now, how many of the new constructions are actually death traps?"

Felicity removed the paperwork from his lap and put it on the nightstand. As she turned off the light she said,"It's nine o'clock, you promised me you'd get eight hours of sleep. You're not allowed to worry until tomorrow."

Oliver turned his head towards her and grinned. "I'm not tired." She bit her bottom lip and swung a leg across his thighs to straddle him. She ran her fingers through his hair and began to place gentle kisses across his face. He sighed, "Mmmm, that feels good."

She tried to tamp down her disappointment as she realized her ministrations were having the opposite effect of her intent. She could feel him relaxing beneath her fingers and knew he was about to fall asleep. She kissed his jaw and made a move to return to her side of the bed when Oliver's hands banded around her waist and pulled her against him as he laid them both down. He nuzzled her neck before settling his head just above her heart. "I love you," she whispered as she made lazy circles across his back.

"I love you. Felicity?" He asked groggily. "Will you go on a date-date with me tomorrow?"

She tried not to think of all the work she had to do on their Tuddle investigation. She knew Oliver was impatient to take him down. She also knew that he'd want her to look into the supplier who sold their contractor the faulty steel beams. Life with Oliver was always going to be a never ending balancing act and they both needed to learn to make time for each other. The criminals would always be there, so they might as well take some occasional time for themselves. If he was going to make an effort, so was she. "Yes."

"And Felicity," he said placing a kiss to her breastbone.

"Yes, Oliver."

"You better get eight hours of sleep tonight too because I don't plan on letting you get any sleep tomorrow night." Felicity gulped and knew he could feel it from his position on her chest. "And Felicity," he said seductively.

"Yes, Oliver." Her voice sounded breathier than she intended.

"That, is a promise."

Notes: Thank you for reading. Your feedback is both welcomed and appreciated.

Up Next: Felicity runs into Vic and he needs a favor.