He moves up behind her quickly, easily catching up as she keeps a clipped pace along the path. As he approaches he takes in her appearance from behind. Her once long blonde hair has been cut short, angled in such a way that it leaves the back of her neck exposed even though the pieces that frame her face hang past her jaw. It has been almost two weeks since she changed it but she has yet to give him an explanation as to why. Not that he has actually asked her. A part of him is afraid to hear what she will say. He doesn't want to be the reason that she has altered her appearance in any way. He doesn't want to believe that he has that kind of effect on her.
He is only a few yards behind her and he forces himself to keep his eyes above her waist. Her lithe body moves quickly, efficiently, her pace even as she moves fluidly along the winding trail that follows the canyon behind their hotel. He focuses on her hair which blows erratically in the wind, becoming more tangled by the second, and is glad that she left it blonde. Even though he'd been startled, and slightly concerned, when he'd discovered that she'd cut it, he had been relieved to see that the color had remained the same. He isn't sure why, but the idea of Felicity with hair of any other color doesn't sit well with him.
As he falls into step beside her, she glances at him out of the corner of her eye. She isn't startled and he knows that she felt him approaching her. She watches him for a second longer before her eyes flit back to the path in front of her. He can hear the up-tempo pop music that blasts loudly from the tiny speakers that she has clipped to the neckline of her shirt. She won't wear them in her ears because it dulls her senses. He knows this because he has told her time and again that it isn't safe for her to run when she isn't aware of her surroundings. He isn't sure when she actually started running regularly but he knows that she has gone on a run every morning since they arrived in Montana.
They are staying in a hotel just outside of Helena. They are on site to meet with investors regarding a new satellite location of Queen Consolidated. He is only vaguely aware of what this particular office will be handling. Felicity has been more involved from day one of the project and sometimes he wonders why he can't just promote her to be CEO. She generally knows more about his company than he does.
"When did this start?" he asks her after they have run a good quarter of a mile in silence.
She glances at him again briefly, shrugging.
"I used to run all the time in high school. Believe it or not, I ran cross-country for three years. But when I went to MIT, I just sort of stopped. I didn't have time for it anymore. I was always too busy."
He casts his eyes in her direction and watches the rise and fall of her chest as her lungs expand. It doesn't take long for their strides to synchronize. He doesn't have to work much to keep up with her. If anything, he is jogging while she is running.
"Why start again?"
She sighs and slows to a walk, her hands settling on her hips as she tips her head back to look up at the sky. It is early morning, the sun barely peaking up over the horizon, and he watches the way that the light plays in her hair.
"I don't know. I guess… I guess I'm tired of feeling like the weakest one on the team," she tells him, "Between you and Digg and Roy and now Sara, I'm the only one who can't take care of myself. I'm a liability."
He opens his mouth to argue with her but the words are stuck in his throat. There is so much that needs to be said between them but he can't figure out where to begin. He had had a feeling before asking the question that her response would be something close to what she's just said. He'd had a speech prepared and everything but as he hears the self-doubt in her voice, he knows that what he was prepared to say isn't enough.
She shakes her head and turns back to the task at hand. Before he can voice a single thought, she is off and running again. It takes him a moment to regain his equilibrium and catch up to her.
"You're not weak."
She scoffs and rolls her eyes in his direction. She continues moving, her legs carrying her faster when they reach a steep incline, her lungs working harder to get enough oxygen circulating. When they reach the top, she's panting but she doesn't slow down.
"You're right, in a way. Diggle and Roy and Sara, they all have strengths, physical strengths, as do I, but we have our weaknesses as well. There are things that each of us has to work on, things about ourselves that we find inadequate. Look at Roy. Sure, he's strong and he's fast but he's also out of control. He's still learning to be who he is with the mirakuru in his system."
She says nothing. She is clearly listening but she doesn't respond. He presses forward, keeping pace at her side.
"Your strength isn't physical, Felicity, but that doesn't mean that you are weak by any means. Your brilliance is your greatest strength. You're intelligent, more so than anyone else that I know, and sometimes the things that you're capable of scare me," he assures her, "And don't give me that look. I'm serious."
The disbelieving glance she throws his way makes one corner of his mouth pull up. He isn't kidding though, the words he speaks are the God's honest truth. She is able to do things with a computer that no human should be able to do. She knows things that ninety-nine percent of the population doesn't know and those talents make her strong. He understands that having two new members of their 'team', both of whom bring physical strength with them as their talent, is intimidating to her. He sees the way she skirts around the room when they're training, when they're sparring. He notices the way that, more and more frequently, she makes herself scarce. He notices and he doesn't like it. He isn't sure where her self-confidence has suddenly gone but he wants to do whatever is necessary to help her find it again.
When they first met her, she had no problem telling him and John both just how brilliant she was. She had no problem raising a triumphant fist in the air when she cracked through some government fire wall or hunted down their target of the week. Hell, she bragged about the things that she could do with a computer day in and day out. And he never minded it, not for a minute. He misses that side of her. He misses the happy, giddy, flustered Felicity who let the most random things tumble from her lips. Over the last couple of months, he's watched her become this new person, this woman who runs beside him in near silence, and he hardly recognizes her.
"I still don't like that I can't protect myself," she confesses, her words broken as she breathes heavily, "I hate having to rely on one of you to save me. You've saved me a million times over it feels like. I'm just tired of being the damsel in distress, Oliver."
It's his turn to sigh and slow his pace. Eventually he comes to a stop and after moving a few feet ahead of him, she does the same. She turns to face him, her eyes shining behind her glasses. He is almost certain that it is the wind that has brought moisture to her eyes just as he knows that the kiss of pink coloring the apples of her cheeks is a result of windburn and sun exposure. Even devoid of her usual make-up, her face is stunningly beautiful.
"Do you realize how many times your voice in my ear has saved me? How many times, without you giving me instructions, directing me where to go or providing me information, I could've been killed doing what I do?" he questions, moving to close the distance between them, "Felicity, protecting you when you're in the field is a part of my job. Diggle and I made an agreement when we brought you into this that we would do whatever it took to keep you safe and if that means that I have to save you from a landmine or from being injected with a lethal dose of Vertigo, then so be it. I don't consider you a damsel in distress, I never have, so I wish that you wouldn't think of yourself that way."
She turns away from him. He watches her face as she gazes out at the canyon. The silence that stretches between them is unsettling. This is Felicity and his Felicity is a beautiful woman with a tendency to babble. His Felicity tells it like it is. She gets in his face. She stands up to him. She tells him when he's in the wrong and she isn't afraid of his reactions. This new Felicity worries him. She is too reserved, too cold, and he misses the woman that he first met in the IT department at Queen Consolidated. He misses her and he fears that he has done this to her. He fears that he has provoked this change in her.
"I get what you're saying, Oliver, and I understand what you're trying to do but you aren't going to change the way that I feel. I still feel like a liability, like I'm somehow going to get one of you killed. I don't want any of you to die for me."
He inhales sharply, a tightness pulling so painfully at his chest that it is suddenly difficult to breathe. The idea of Felicity hurt, of someone threatening her, harming her, makes his stomach turn over. He recounts with perfect clarity the terror that rolled through him when he'd found Count Vertigo holding her in his office at QC. It had been as if someone had poured ice water in his veins when he'd seen the needles pressed into the delicate skin of her neck. And only a month ago when she'd been shot. He had never felt fear like what he'd experienced that night. He lived through hell in the five years that he'd been on that damned island but the sheer horror that he felt when he thought of losing the woman in front of him was worse than any he'd experienced on Lian Yu.
"It would be worth it. You're worth it."
She whips around so quickly that it makes him dizzy. The fury in her eyes is not what he is expecting. When she rushes forwarded and pounds her tiny fist against his chest he stumbles backwards in surprise.
"Damn you, Oliver! Don't say that to me! My life is not worth more than yours, more than any of yours! I don't want any of you thinking that, for whatever ridiculous reason, you need to die for me! Do you think that I want that on my conscience? I absolutely do not want any of you to give your life for me! That's just – it's just so stupid!"
There are real tears in her eyes suddenly and he isn't exactly sure what's happening. He catches her fist when she makes another attempt to hit him and hauls her into his chest. He wraps his arms around her, holding her firmly against him. It takes a long moment for her body to relax and he hears her sniffle.
"Hey, I'm not saying that anything is going to happen," he says soothingly, "I just want you to know that I'm not going to let anything happen to you. I will do everything and anything that I can to make sure that you survive all of this."
She shakes her head, her forehead pressed to his chest just above his heart. He wonders if she can hear it thundering against his ribcage, if she knows that its rhythm has nothing to do with their run.
"I can't lose you."
She voices the fear again, the same fear that ate at her while she was trying to find a way to tell him what she'd discovered about Thea. He remembers the promise that he made to her. He promised her that he wasn't going anywhere, that she wouldn't lose him. It dawns on him then that he had let her down. He had let her down and he knows that it had started the moment that he'd let himself get involved with Sara again. He has kept Felicity at arm's length for close to two years. He's always told himself that they will never be anything more than friends, that he isn't good for her, that he will only hurt her in the end. He's convinced himself that a relationship between them would only destroy the friendship that they have. But he knows that his relationship with Sara is hurting her, that it's pulling them apart, and he hates himself for not seeing it sooner.
What he has with Sara is familiar. She knows him. They have a list of shared experiences that is unreal, a list that most people cannot imagine, so being with her is easy. She doesn't question him when he wakes in the middle of the night from a nightmare, an agonized cry dying on his lips. She doesn't push him to talk about the things that bother him. She doesn't have to because she already knows. He cares for Sara and while he has been trying to convince himself for the last few weeks that he feels something more for her, he knows that it isn't true. If he truly loved Sara, he wouldn't feel so strongly about the woman in his arms.
With his hands on her upper arms, he guides her back so that he can look down into her eyes. She blinks away the last of her tears and sniffs again.
"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
She gives a sharp nod and extricates herself from his embrace. He misses the feel of her in his arms almost immediately. No words are exchanged as they begin running again. He takes up his place at her side and makes up his mind. He has to end things with Sara. He has to let her go because he knows that she doesn't love him anymore than he loves her. He knows that her heart is with Nyssa, as it should be, and that his heart is with the petite blonde currently keeping him company.
He shakes his head. He hopes that he can get her back, that he can pull her back from this edge that she is currently standing on and that he hasn't lost the woman that he cares for so deeply. He wants the old Felicity back and he is suddenly convinced that he will do whatever it takes to get her.