Oliver opened his eyes. Beads of sweat burned his eyes. His heart began to race realizing that his hands were tied above his head. Fyres held a picture in front of his face, "Do you know the man in this picture?"

It took ever ounce of strength Oliver had left to maintain some type of composure. The man in the photo had helped him. Saved him. He couldn't betray that. Fyres nodded slightly, moving out of the way for the masked man with the swords. Before Oliver could prepare for what was coming, the blade pierced his abdomen. He let out a blood curdling scream. The second stab came in at his upper left chest. Stings of pain radiated from the wounds. Oliver had never felt pain like this. He felt the blood dripping down under his button up shirt. Oliver let his eyes shut to keep the tears in.

When he opened them back up, he was in a ring of swords. Yao Fei in front of him. Panic. Betrayal. Oliver wanted to run, but he couldn't. Trapped, he tried to fight. He felt Yao Fei's tight arms wrap around him. He thought he heard someone yelling his name in the distance. Fighting harder to try to shake Yao Fei off of him.


"OLIVER!" Felicity kneeled down beside the sofa in the back of the Arrowcave. She had come in to find Oliver in a cold sweat, asleep. "Oliver. It's Felicity. You are safe. You are home. Wake up!" He was starting to scare her. Not in the sense that she fear him, but that she did not know how to help him. "Oliver, please. Wake up. You are safe. You are in the foundry. Under Verdant. Your quirky babbling IT girl is here babbling to you while you sleep. Wake up, Oliver, please!" Felicity whispered to him as she went to hug him. "Oliver, wa..."

Oliver shot up off of the sofa. He punched Felicity in the face, before pushing her away. She fell back on to the floor with a thud, as Oliver retreated to the back corner of the room. He bent his knees in front of him and rocked gently. "Wake up," he gritted through his teeth.

Felicity adjusted her glasses. She watched Oliver. It reminded her of shows she watched on Discovery when she was a kid. The wounded animal hunched in the corner, lashing out when it was scared. She sat there, watching Oliver Queen, the Hood, the bravest man she knew, crying and shaking. Felicity picked up the blanket off of the sofa and walked over to Oliver quietly.

"Oliver, it's Felicity. It's okay." She whispered as she sat down in front of him.

He had his head down on his knees. If there was ever a time that Felicity would have killed for one of those Easy buttons from the commercials - this was it. No one deserved this. Oliver was a mystery, and she hated mysteries. She always wanted to solve them, but this was one she couldn't solve until Oliver wanted it to be. Felicity knew she could be okay with that.

"Oliver..."she whispered as she lightly touched his hand. "I'm going to wrap this blanket around you, then go get you some water. Okay?" She tightly squeezed what fingers of his hand she could grab. Oliver's head snapped up. His green eyes read a state of panic that she had never seen from them. He squeezed her hand back tightly. Felicity smiled. "Welcome back," she said softly.


Inside of his head, Oliver pleaded for the images to stop. To his heart beat to slow down. For the shivering to stop. He just wanted to sleep. He needed to sleep. It was Russian roulette to close his eyes. He wished he could just be numb and not feel. He held his knees tightly to his chest with his head resting on them. "Wake up..." he kept telling himself.

Then he heard her voice. Felicity. Shit. He did not want her to see him like this. He wanted no one to see this side of him. His mother and Walter did, and they looked at him so terrified. As if he were damaged beyond repair. Broken. Lost in the darkness of purgatory forever. He kept his head down. Maybe she was a dream, as well. Then he felt the warmth of her hand on his fingers. The sensation of that touch warmed him. He snapped out of it and looked up at her. She smiled softly, "Welcome Back." Gently Felicity wrapped the blanket around his shirtless body. Oliver pulled it in tightly.

As Felicity stood up, Oliver noticed she was bleeding. He grabbed her wrist to stop her. "Did I hurt you?" He stammered in a panic. "I'm so sorry, Felicity." He pulled her back down in front of him. His hand went to a gash of torn skin near her left eye brow. Oliver started crying. "I am so sorry. Things like this are why I need to be alone."

Felicity slapped him - hard - across his face. Oliver shook his head in surprise. "Oliver Queen. You do NOT need to be alone. Did it ever cross your mind that the people that want to be around you, want you in their lives, know that you have baggage? And that regardless of that knowledge, they still want you in their lives? They want to be there to take that two am phone call when you can't sleep. Or be the one that prepares the Doctor Who and ice cream marathon when you have a bad week?"

Oliver just watched her. This fiesty blonde, who had now seen him at his worst and his lowest, yet she showed no fear of him. She was also the only person to ever be able to ground him like she does, even if it pisses him off to no end some days.

"Now, I figured when my super hero boss punched me, that I would end up with some cut of something. It will heal in a few days. If it will help you feel better, you can play doctor with me like I did with you." Felicity started blushing before the statement completely left her lips.

Oliver couldn't help himself, "But you aren't shot or topless..."

"Don't make me slap you again, Oliver."

"Yes, ma'am." He smirked. I never want to be without you, Felicity Smoak. Oliver thought to himself. Not even Tommy could call him on his bullshit like this pony tailed blonde could.

"Now, if you would like, I will go get you some water. You get the first aide stuff for my head, and we'll fix me up. Then I'll stay here tonight. I don't care if you sleep, continue your shirt allergy, go on a homicidal rampage of the local tennis ball population, who cares...You will not be alone tonight, okay?"

Her babbling. Oliver smiled. "Deal. Not like I'd let you drive anyway with that head injury. I don't know if I could get back to sleep again tonight though."

"Good thing I gave you other options, isn't it?" Felicity smirked.

After the past few weeks - McKenna, Helena, The Savoir, Tommy, Laurel - Felicity was a welcome change. She had more strength in her than you could tell by her outside appearance. Oliver wonder at times if she was braver than him.


Felicity sat at her computers while Oliver bandaged up the cut. It had stopped bleeding on it's own, so it didn't need stitches. He still felt so horrible that he had harmed her. The skin under her eye was already bruising. "Stop worrying, Oliver." Sometimes he wondered if he was an open book to her.

Oliver handed her two Tylenol. "These should help. Let me know if the headache gets worse, okay?" Oliver said not trying to hide the concern in his voice.

"I will," Felicity nodded. "I'm going to work some. I'll be here if you need me, okay?"

Oliver nodded in returned. He liked that thought. Just having someone there. He knew he couldn't go back to sleep right now. No matter how much Felicity had snapped him back to reality, it still scared him to close his eyes again just yet. He walked past the box that held his bow. The journal that Felicity gave him still sat in there. Oliver hadn't written in it yet. Honestly, he was afraid to, and he had not touched it since he thanked Felicity for it. But after tonight and after Diggle's talk yesterday, he decided to give it a try. Out of the two of those reasons, hurting Felicity was the tipping point. He could protect them from the evil of the city, but he was not sure of his ability to keep them safe from himself.

Oliver took the journal and pen back to the sofa where Felicity found him a short time ago. He sat down and opened it up. The note Felicity wrote him was still in there, so he tucked it into between pages in the back to keep it safe. Oliver looked up at Felicity. He could see her working away. Oliver knew she saw him pick up the journal, yet her focus never drifted to him. She gave him the privacy he desperately needed for this. With a sigh he closed his eyes for a moment. Opening them back up, he began writing.

My name is Oliver Queen. For five years, I was stranded on an island with only one goal - survive. The island of Lian Yu changed me. It still haunts my nightmares. I've changed. I'm different. Better, yet worse. While I might be back in civilization, I'm still very much damned to Lian Yu. To Purgatory. Limbo. And I don't want to be on an island anymore...


It was past midnight when Felicity looked up from the panels of computers. Oliver had fallen asleep writing in his journal. She smiled as he seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Taking her glasses off and laying them down on the desk, she got up and turned off the lights around the foundry. The soft glow of the computer monitors was the only light left. Oliver hadn't budge at the environment change. She gently picked up the journal and pen from his lap, placing it on the ground by the sofa. It did not even cross her mind to read it. She was just glad he wrote something down.

Felicity grabbed a blanket for herself from the storage room. She slipped out of her dress and into some of her work out clothes she kept there for defense training. If she was sleeping here tonight, she might as well be as comfortable as she could be. Office attire was not exactly pjs! Felicity walked through the darkness back to Oliver on the sofa. She sat on the opposite end, turned towards him, watching him until she fell asleep herself.


Oliver woke up a few hours later. Blinking his eyes, he played over last night in his mind. He saw Felicity was still there, asleep, on the sofa with him. He winced when he saw that she now had a black eye. Something was different - her glasses. He hadn't seen her without them since they went after the Dodger. That was the first night she took him by surprise.

As Oliver went to stand up, Felicity woke up. "Good morning," she mumbled. "Please tell me you have coffee here, somewhere."

Oliver couldn't help but laugh. "Yes, but first, Felicity?"

"Yeah?"

"Good news or bad news first?"

"Oh I really hate this game as a kid. Good news."

"Thank you for last night. And thank you for the journal. I started writing in it. I'm sorry I haven't thanked you really properly before now outside of a simple thank you the day you gave it to me. It's probably the best gift I've gotten, ever." Oliver noticed her cheeks flush.

"You are very welcome," she stammered. "And I know you wrote last night. I saw." Felicity said. A slight wave of panic washed Oliver's face. "I did not read it. Never will. Unless you tell me it is okay. I won't do to you what my mom did to me and read your personal writings. I mean, I know from experience that sucks. But I can understand your fear. I did hack your private records out of boredom. I'm still sorry about that. This is different though. You can trust me. You know that, right?" Oliver smirked and nodded. "Oh good. I'll stop babbling now. Hit me with the bad news."

"I'm sorry I gave you a black eye." Oliver said bluntly, pointing to her left eye.

"DUDE! I have a black eye!?" Felicity gasped, jumping off of the sofa to run to the bathroom. Oliver's blood went cold instantly. He knew she would be afraid of him now. He waited impatiently outside the bathroom. "That is so cool," she said as she came out of the bathroom. "I've never had a black eye before! You popped my cherry! Oh argh...gah...no...that sounds horrible. I mean, I'm not a virgin. I mean I've never had a black eye before now...I'm just going to shut up and go make coffee."

And for the first time in days, Oliver chuckled. He stopped chuckling suddenly when he saw Digg coming down the stairs. "Woah...Felicity, what happened?"

"Oh, I pulled an all nighter at the computers. Got bored. Went exploring. Tried to play with the sticks Oliver and you use. Which I'd like to lodge a complaint against one of them. It hurt me. Oliver fixed me up, then properly beat the stick up for me to avenge my honor." Felicity babbled away.

All Oliver could think was that she was protecting him from having to answer questions, and he was so very thankful for that. He also saw just what Felicity meant when she said she lied better than he did.