I do not own Ollicity or Arrow, though I really with I owned Felicity's wardrobe/lipsticks. The girl's got style.

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"Maybe I should get a haircut." Felicity says one day. She addresses the air, since it's just she and Oliver in the secret hideout, and she'd used to one-sided conversations. She gets her best work done at these times, working on new computer programs and finishing up some budget balancing for Queen Consolidated.

"Don't."

Felicity head jerks up and she looks at him strangely, as if surprised that he'd spoken up at all.

"And why not?"

Oliver mutters something, muddled by the grunts of exertion as he continues his push-ups.

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that." Felicity asks.

"I said, I like your hair." Oliver says more loudly, not pausing his exercise, and seeming to be making a pointed effort to avoid looking up. And he does—it always seems so sunshiny and soft, even when it's tied back into an efficient office-girl ponytail.

Felicity is baffled, and her mouth opens and closes a few times before saying, "Well… uh… thank you."

"You're welcome." Oliver returns gruffly. He'd be damned if he let the Count ruin someone as good as Felicity, because he knows that the incident with the mad-man had spurned this discussion. He wasn't oblivious to the way that she would touch her hair, then a mild expression of disgust would flit across her face, and she would let the strands go as if they'd burned her. Or the fact that she rarely wears her hair down anymore, even for formal events, or the amount of times that Felicity had been compelled to take a shower after being assaulted by the Count.

"Don't let him control you, Felicity." He says firmly, meeting her eyes behind her glasses with his own steady gaze.

"Okay." She says, and turns back to her work. Though very few words had passed between them, the short exchange had contained a multitude of emotions for her. She bites her lip, which has started to tremble, and feels immensely relieved. Oliver had told her to be strong, and that things would be okay. That she was better than the fear that had taken her over. She would not give the Count any power over her, even after his death. Felicity has come to believe in Oliver in every aspect of her life, and now she knows that he understands the trauma, which helps more than she had imagined it could.

She will acknowledge what had happened, but she will not succumb to fear.

This is perhaps the most important lesson that she has learned in a very long time.

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If this doesn't make sense, here's a bit of explanation. The Count grabbed Felicity by the hair when he was threatening her, and so I would imagine that she would feel dirty being touched by him at all, and that manifests in her feelings towards her hair.