His text wakes her up from her light sleep. Locating her glasses, she reads it. "I am at the balcony." She grabs her robe and is at her balcony in seconds. He is standing in one corner, still wearing his suit from the party they were at earlier.
"Hey." He turns to her when he notices her presence.
"Hi." She cannot help but smile. Despite the day they had, despite how tired he has been, he still looks handsome and manages to crack a smile at her. "Couldn't sleep?"
He shakes his head. "I had too many thoughts." he says as he leans against the railing. "Did I wake you?"
"I wasn't in the REM cycle yet." She shrugs. "Want to talk?"
"Not really." he replies as she stands next to him. "Beautiful night."
For minutes, they stand next to each other in silence, looking over Starling City from Felicity's new apartment's balcony. Her apartment was the scene of crime for their last encounter with the Dark Archer who hadn't been killed apparently the night Glades fell and his son died, and at that apartment he finally fell to his death and in a twist of fate, she was kicked out from the apartment by her landlady for hosting the fight that ended the Dark Archer's reign of terror.
"Are you cold?" he asks as she shivers lightly. Her robe is short and she is standing barefoot in the chill of the night. Without waiting for her reply, he takes his jacket off and puts it on her shoulders.
"Thanks." she murmurs under her breath. "Did Laurel make it safe home?"
"Yeah, she did." He almost whispers. "I made it sure she did. She even invited me over for a nightcap, but I turned her down."
It wasn't every day that Laurel Lance had her life saved by her own sister and then invited the man she held responsible for her alleged death over to her apartment. Felicity thought what she would do if she knew the truth. She understood Sara's reasons to still keep her identity secret from her sister, but felt sorry for both of them. The older needs reassurance in her life after all the losses she suffered and the younger needs some hope to light her dark life. She wonders how big of a burden it must be to lie to your loved ones about your very own existence, then thinks about her own life and Oliver's and realizes that their lives aren't that different since they keep the people closest to them in the dark about their secret life.
"Not even for a friendly chat over coffee? Cut the girl some slack, she has been through a lot."
What falls from her lips surprises her, and evidently Oliver as well. "Did you just defend Laurel Lance? I thought you hated her."
Felicity in some parts does hate Laurel especially after she sued her for a misunderstanding, blaming her for several hackings made into the system of the DA's office but she was acquitted because she had nothing to do with the hackings and was simply being framed, and even though they weren't friends to begin with, things were now more difficult. Laurel wouldn't even look at her when they were in the same room.
"I am not her biggest fan, but she is one of your oldest friends and you should be there for her."
Her response brings a grin on his face, one that she hasn't seen for a year now. "Felicity Smoak, you are a big softie."
"I won't deny it and one of us needs to be the softie. We can't brood like you all the time."
She lets out a small yawn and decides to walk to the other end of the balcony, which is only five steps away. He follows her immediately. "So did you have fun at the party? You disappeared with Paul right after the cops showed up."
"He decided to surprise me by coming back from his business trip early." she answers. "We left and went for dinner. Sorry I didn't inform you."
He doesn't know whether her last statement holds a tone of bitterness, but hopes it does not. Being overprotective of her is like a bad habit he cannot quit. "That is nice of him, cutting his trip short for you."
She nods in agreement. "He really doesn't like Central City. Who can blame him?"
"Aren't you from Central City?" he questions, raising an eyebrow.
"Home isn't where you are born, it is where you make it." Her reply is short and to the point and makes him think. He knows his home is Starling City, but he is sure that it is not because he was born there. Coming back from the island to the city hadn't felt like coming home, but now, almost three years later, whenever he leaves the city even for the shortest excursion, he always feels like he is coming back home when he returns.
He takes advantage of her silence and looks at her. Gone is the make-up from earlier the night, her hair is held up in a ponytail with the curls he had missed. She was wearing a long black dress, it is now replaced by the pink robe under his jacket that is too big for her and her pajama shorts that show off her legs. Noticing the green nail polish on her feet makes him smile. She stays silent and he realizes that over the last year, she has become silent in his presence. Gone are her ramblings and occasional sexual innuendos. He realizes that he misses her ramblings.
She finally breaks her silence and speaks in a rushed, almost inaudible tone that makes him think that she just wants to get it out of her chest. "Paul asked me to marry him."
He feels like somebody punched him in the gut. He feels like the air has left his lungs. It makes him remember the terror he felt seeing the Dark Archer back from the dead, holding Felicity hostage in his arms. He doesn't say anything, unsure of what he actually has to say.
"That was his surprise. He took me to dinner and proposed."
He shouldn't be really shocked. According to Digg, it could have happened any moment. They had been dating for over a year and Paul always attended the occasional office party in her arm even though he was traveling a lot. He didn't know what exactly Paul was doing, it had something to do with some hedgefund involving many companies all over the country. Paul wasn't a bad guy, he had done his background check on him. He just didn't think the guy actually had the guts to propose.
"I didn't say anything." she says, not looking at him. "He was on one knee for minutes, everyone was looking at us, but I couldn't say anything. I didn't say yes." That makes Oliver turn and look at her. Her head is down. "But I didn't say no either. I asked him to give me time. I am pretty sure he was really embarrassed, but you cannot just leave a bombshell like that on someone in front of strangers. It is like those kiss-cams at basketball games, there is too much pressure and the results are varying. You kiss for the sake of others and not because you want to. It is quite stressful. Not that I have ever been on one."
He thinks that this is the most rambling she has done in a year and it is like music to his ears. He wonders if he is being rude by not saying a thing, but in reality, he doesn't have any valuable comments to the situation. So he comes up with what has been tormenting him for the longest time. "Do you love him?"
Now it is her turn to be taken aback. She doesn't say anything, turns her back and places her elbows on the railing. She pouts and puffs, then takes her glasses off and rubs over her eyes with the back of her hands. "I can love him." she finally says.
He doesn't know whether he should sigh in relief because she doesn't love him or in agony because she could. They are a good match on paper. He has a trouble-free life that doesn't involve wearing a green leather suit and jumping off rooftops and putting arrows in real bad guys. He does travel rather exceedingly, leaving her alone most of the time, which he appreciates actually because she doesn't get to lie that much to his face. He is there for her when she needs him and according to her, he gives great hugs. He has a respectable job, a nice house and enough money in the bank to allow them to live a life without financial worries.
For a brief moment, he imagines them married, in front of a white-picketed house with a dog and two children, a boy and a girl, with blond hair – the image of a perfect family. She would work from home and take the kids to their extracurricular activities and he would throw barbeque parties for the neighborhood. Everybody would comment on how happy they look together and how smart their kids are. He would laugh and say that the kids take their intelligence after her and leave a peck on her cheek while she offered more nachos. They would go to the beach for summer vacations and she would tag along on some of his business trips, leaving the kids with his mother. They would sip homemade lemonade on the porch, watching their kids playing in the kid pool and then climb into bed together and read their own books before drifting off to sleep in each other's arms.
Just the idea of it makes him sick to his core. He is a selfish man, he reasons. He doesn't want her to have the perfect life and a family with a decent guy who could make her very happy. He doesn't want Paul to be the first person she sees when she wakes up and last before she falls asleep. He doesn't want him to be the person to put a smile on her face when he cracks a terrible joke. He doesn't want him to be the one getting to touch her, kiss her, make her shake with release in bed. No, he doesn't want Paul to be that person.
He wants to be that person even though he knows he cannot. He cannot give her the life she deserves, the happiness she needs. Yet he cannot help imagining. He wants to see her when she wakes up in his arms and fumbles for her glasses before she looks at him. He wants to sneak in while she showers and help her wash her long hair and then kiss her deeply under the water. He wants to hold her hand as they go through the aisles in the grocery store after she makes fun of how he actually never did grocery shopping in his life. He wants to hear her voice in his ears when he is on mission and then hear her say how it feels good to have him inside her, literally, during sex. He wants to kiss and taste her lips whenever he wants because he can. He wants to teach her how to shoot arrows and take her to vacations on a small, private island that doesn't involve landmines and a history with Chinese soldiers. He wants her to meet Thea and then have her try and change his mind about Roy.
He wants all the small things and the big things with her, to build a life with her and just be happy and make her happy. He knows being around him is dangerous, that she has already faced death because of him several times. Yet he knows that he just cannot be without her.
"I think I can love him. He is a really good guy and he makes me feel normal."
Her voice halts his thoughts. The word normal just stings him in his chest. No matter how hard he can try, he knows that normalcy is one thing he cannot have or give her. The world would be after him always either as Oliver Queen, the millionaire bad-boy CEO chased by the paparazzi or as the Arrow, chased by bad guys and authority figures. He would always be under someone's radar. He cannot be either of the personalities without the other. He doesn't know how to be simply the Oliver Queen of old times after all he has been through and he needs to use the Oliver Queen personality to give the Arrow an alibi and a reason to believe in himself after living his life as an asshole up until he got stranded on an island.
"I know the feeling is not there yet, but I think it can. He can make me happy." She finally looks up at him. He feels like her eyes are searching for something on his face.
At that point he wants to shout at her: How can you marry someone out of assumption? How can you give up your life just for the notion of something that doesn't exist yet? How can you be so sure about something you are unsure about? He wants to grab hold of her shoulders and shake her and bring her into realization.
For a girl who has just got proposed, he thinks she looks too sad. He has seen his share of newly engaged couples, or girls laughing and jumping and screaming out their happiness right after being proposed to either at the club or the social circles he has been in. Felicity looks like she is about to cry.
He thinks back about the time when she first met Paul. They had gone to a business party for a mission he already forgot the details of, under the pretense of representing Queen Consolidated in an attempt to get a hold of a microchip hidden in the ring of the host. Felicity started chatting up people around the host to give Oliver the opportunity to pickpocket the ring. When he was done, he realized that one of the guests was lingering around her more than necessary, and she laughed at whatever he said several times. He never knew whether she was faking it or not. They had exchanged business cards in front of his eyes and even though he expected that she would forget about him the very next day, apparently Paul was very insistent and a month later, she was dressed in a cocktail dress in the foundry, ready to leave for their third date.
He breathes in the chilly air, looking away. There are too many things he wants to say and so many he cannot. He wishes they lived in simpler circumstances where he was just a normal guy without the weight of the world on his shoulders and she was just a normal girl without the tendency to hack illegally into various servers. They could live a normal life that did not include secret meetings in secret lairs and secret missions to take out secret organizations and keeping secrets about their secret lives. He wouldn't live in a huge mansion alone and she wouldn't be kicked out of her apartment for hosting a scene of a crime.
"You cannot marry him." He breathes out, afraid that his voice is shaking.
Felicity is the eye of a storm. She is tense, her face is red, she opens her mouth several times. He sees her biting the insides of her cheeks. In an attempt to calm herself, he thinks, she rubs the bridge of her nose where her glasses reside. She takes a deep breath, then another. He tries to avoid her eyes but he cannot.
"You told me that you couldn't be with me." She starts. "After Russia. You told me you couldn't be with me, in between the lines. It was over a year ago." She pauses as her voice falters. "You and Digg encouraged me to date." She takes yet another deep breath. "Now you tell me I cannot marry him?"
He wants to say a lot of things. He wants to crack a joke about how beautiful she looks when she is angry. He wants to say that Russia and what he said afterwards was a mistake. He wants to say that he was an idiot for the encouragement and that it kills him to see her with Paul. He wants to tell her that a future without her beside him is nothing but a nightmare, worse than those he has about Lian Yu. He wants to reach out and touch her cheek and run his fingers through her curls. He wants to reassure her that nothing will ever happen between him and Laurel or any other woman simply because of the fact that they are not her.
He wants to tell her that he wants to be the one to meet her parents and travel to Central City with her, that he wants her at his side at family dinners, that he wouldn't embarrass her or himself by proposing in the middle of a restaurant.
"Oliver." His name on her lips is a whisper. "Say something."
He lets go off the breath he didn't know he was holding. "You cannot marry him." he repeats. "Felicity, you cannot marry someone you don't know you love."
His own words sounds like a cheesy line from an advice column. She is standing before him, cold and angry, expecting an explanation and all he comes up with is a stupid cliché. He momentarily wishes that he could turn back time by a second and come up with something better.
"Why?" her voice finally breaks and she turns her back to him, moving away from him. "Why can't I be the one to who gets to be happy?" he hears her say, questioning not him but mostly herself.
"Because I love you."
He expects that it should be a revelation. It is nothing but the truth. He loves her and wonders how long he has been keeping it a secret from himself, and her. He feels like if they were in a movie she had made him watch before, the sky would open and rain would fall, drenching them to the bone in seconds. Birds would start chirping in the middle of the night. Fireworks would light up the sky among shooting stars. Nothing like that happens because it is the real life and it is the truth, the only truth in his life. Oliver Queen is in love with Felicity Smoak. It is that simple, except it isn't.
She stops. He sees her wrap her arms around herself. Her head falls down. He wishes all of his strength to walk up to her, but he cannot. Instead he watches her as she opens the door and disappears inside her apartment. He wishes that a lighting would hit him because it would hurt less.
A/N: So I woke up 7 in the morning on Sunday with a conversation and a scene between these idiots in my head and wrote two pages before I washed my face and this happened. The title is from The National's "Green Gloves" which doesn't make sense in the context of the story, but it was on while I was writing and basically the song is about imagining lives of your friends, coming up with your own scenarios and mostly missing them. Hope you like it! By the way, this can be read as a follow-up to my earlier 'Felicitations' story, but it isn't necessarily the continuation (but probably is in the same universe? I am not sure. Does this make any sense?)