Felicity was on her knees when Oliver made it to the rooftop. As soon as he made his entrance, bow drawn, her eyes flew to meet his. Tears streaked her face, and there was blood on her forehead, but her eyes were clear as they locked on to his. She held his gaze, and choked out his name.
Just one word. Six letters. But he could hear her words behind it.

This isn't your fault.

Don't blame yourself.

Don't be stupid.

All he could think was not her. Not now, after already losing so much. Felicity and Dig had managed to pull him back from the edge of despair, and for what? What was the point of hoping again, when yet another person he cared about was at Slade Wilson 's mercy.

"Let her go, Slade. This has to end."

His old friend laughed. "This WILL end, kid, and soon." He drew the long blade from his back. "I told you one more needed to die." He grabbed Felicity's hair, drawing her head back to expose her throat.

"No!" Oliver roared. "NO MORE!" He drew the arrow containing the cure from Felicity's friends at Star Labs. "I won't let you kill her, when it is the last thing Shado would want. She wasn't even yours, Slade." He repeated the words he had said when his mother had died. Because it was true-he didn't understand how the man before him, who had once been his friend, had done all of these terrible things to avenge a woman that had NOT been his woman.

Slade laughed, and ran the fingers of the hand that were not holding the sword over Felicity's chin. The same hand that was holding the sword. Probably the same sword that killed his mother, and it was inches from her face. Felicity cried out again, closing her eyes and trying to lean as far away from the sword-and Slade's hand-as his grip on her hair would allow.

Oliver couldn't stop the gutteral roar that came. Not this. Not again. He couldn't watch another person he loved die. His father, Sara, Tommy, his mother. Not Felicity, who would never be here if it were not for him. Who pulled him back from the edge. Felicity, who saw him as more than he was.

Slade laughed that bone chilling laugh again. "That's what makes this so perfect, kid. Because this one…" Slade moved his hand from her cheek, pulling harder on her hair as he brought the blade against her neck. "This one isn't yours either. Has never been yours. Will never be yours, because she will die in at the hands of someone you once considered a friend." Oliver's stomach dropped out as the full meaning of the words sunk in. Slade had drawn the perfect parallel. Because she wasn't his. And yet he had no doubt that losing her would be the final straw in his destruction. There would be no pulling him back from this. Slade would have her blood on his sword, but her blood would be on his own hands too. Because he had failed to protect her. He heard a voice in his head arguing with his own line of thought…a voice that sounded a lot like Felicity. But Slade wasn't done. "When this blade falls, you can kill me, and then you can live in the desolate world I have created for you, as I lived in the related world YOU created for me." Slade raised the sword, and time seemed to slow.

It was now or never.

She wasn't his. But he would not lose her all the same.

Felicity Smoak had always seen a hero in him, even when he could not see it himself. He would not fail her now.