Chapter 1 –

One year ago.

"Look, you think you could just stop staring at the phone and just pick it up and call him?" Thea Queen said while admiring the new shoes she'd bought that day, sending the blonde in question a sympathetic thought. Her brother was never easy to be around, but this had been going on for too long and she was tired of having to walk on eggshells between them. Felicity needed an intervention and that's what she'd set out to do, this completely uneventful (save the new shoes) Saturday afternoon.

Felicity smiled, but kept her gaze firmly on the phone in question. "You'd think I wouldn't be that scared of calling him. I mean, I've known him for years now." She fidgeted slightly, as if to gather some courage. "You know, the first time we met, I was being my rambling silly self? He just smiled. I don't think I've ever met anyone who found it that endearing as he seemed to do…" Thea smiled at her. Knowing that Felicity harbored deep feelings for her brother, had not escaped her feminine senses, but she wasn't quite sure that Oliver felt the same.

Ever since her brother had come home from Lian Yu, he had been different. Stronger, capable in ways that even she had yet to discover, but suspected. And yet, he also seemed weaker, in his soul. His smile never quite reached his eyes.

"Thea… I don't think I can." She finally rationalized. "I mean, the last time we spoke he was so angry… I knew I shouldn't have done what he…explicitly…told me not to do…I apologized, and he said he understood…I…just don't know what to say to him." Felicity leaned back on the couch, removing her glasses and pinching her nose bridge in frustration over her inability to just call Oliver and try and mend things.

Thea scooted closer to her friend and rested her head on Felicity's shoulder. "Felicity." She started with a firm tone. "All you have to do is tell him the truth and then see what he says. If he can't at least respect you for taking a stand, then do you really want his forgiveness for going against his wishes?" Thea asked. Felicity shook her head, as if not willing to listen to reason.

"What if he doesn't pick up?" Felicity asked solemnly. Thea could only smile at the inquiry, almost forgetting how it was to be in love with someone and how that tended to overshadow any rationale you might possess. Deep down, she knew that Felicity was only worried because she cared so much for Oliver and what he thought of her. However, banging Felicity over the head with this fact would not benefit either of them, so Thea decided a different approach had to be used.

Lifting her head off of Felicity's shoulder, she reached for the phone on the coffee table, unlocking it and promptly dialing Oliver's number. She could see Felicity starting to protest out of the corner of her eye, but before she'd managed to get her glasses back on, the phone was already ringing. Thea smiled wickedly and held the phone out for Felicity to take it.

"no…no I will not." Felicity mouthed, but Thea showed no sign of relenting.

"Yes?" Oliver's firm voice spilled out of the speaker and Felicity clamped her hand over her mouth as to not make a sound. Seconds ticked by in what seemed like hours to Felicity, but her steadfast friend kept the phone in Felicity's direction and urged her to get her act together and "confront your fear" so to speak.

"I really don't have ti…" Oliver started but was cut off.

"Oliver. It's me. Felicity, which you know because you have caller ID and I realize that I'm making a fool out of myself right now explaining to you that you have caller ID, because of course you know that. So I'm assuming you're no longer mad at me, since you actually picked up." She heard a puff of air through the receiver. It could either mean he was becoming even more annoyed with her, or that he was softening up and perhaps even smiling at her ramble. "Regardless, I just wanted to call you and again explain that I am really sorry for going off without you and not listening to what you said. I know you meant well and that you don't want me to unnecessarily put myself into a dangerous situation…of which I am prone to do for some reason…I swear your vigilanting is rubbing off on me. Yeah, vigilanting, it's a word now." The more Felicity talked the better she felt, because Oliver had yet to stop her. All of her stress and worry eased out of her slowly as she continued this flow of words and became rather removed from the original intent of her phone call. She was brought back to earth when Oliver stopped her.

"Felicity… I was never mad." He breathed with that stoic voice he possessed.

She was dumbstruck at his response. Immediately felt foolish for even worrying so much about it and made a mental note of instructing Thea to hit her over the head the next time she decided to get so damn female.

"Oh, okay. Good. Great. Super. Well, I guess that was all I wanted to say then. I'll see you later." She waited for an acknowledgement and hung up after they'd said their goodbyes.

Thea eyed the flummoxed blonde as she put the phone down on the coffee table, leaned back on the couch again while she closed her eyes. "I am guessing that was not exactly the reaction you were expecting?" Thea prodded after a second or two of silence as Felicity tried to stabilize her breathing.

"I have had it with trying to figure him out, he's just…un-figurable."

Thea laughed softly before she leaned forward to rest her elbows on her legs. "He… he changed Felicity. On the island. He's still my brother, but even I have a hard time figuring out where his head is at." Thea moved a hand through her hair and sighed. "I just wish he'd be completely honest with us…for once."

Across town,

In the basement under Verdant, Oliver Queen was keeping himself busy after the conversation with Felicity. He knew he'd been slightly curt with her when he found out she'd explicitly gone against his wishes, but he'd never imagined she would come to the conclusion that he was mad at her. In retrospect he realized that Felicity, however capable in ways of interpreting computer code, was not as adept at deciphering social clues. So his firm but vocal reaction to saving her from a precarious situation probably had come off as slightly angry. He made a mental note of trying to explain to her when he saw her next that his occasionally gruff approach was not meant to be taken so literally.

Oliver knew that Felicity would probably do fairly well in simple self defense, but her skills would be severely lacking in a knife fight – which is what he found her in the middle of. If it hadn't been for his ever present paranoia of losing the people he cared about, he probably would never have put a tracker in Felicity's phone, which had lead him to the aforementioned knife fight. Whatever pride he felt for Felicity not thinking twice about the fact that she could have gotten herself killed, but went anyway because a life was at stake, was decidedly overshadowed by his fear of losing her. Of losing any of the people he called his family at the present state.

After living in hell on Lian Yu, Hong Kong and surviving a return to Starling City, he was both weary of bringing people into his life, because of the danger it would present, but also thankful for the ones who proved to be trustworthy and able to contain some sort of common sense. Except Felicity… She had always been the odd one out, ever since he'd laid eyes on her that day at Queen Consolidated.

He had not met a single person since he'd been back, that surprised him quite as much as she did. Strong willed (also known as stubborn), incredibly intelligent and bestowed with such grace in the form of willingness to fight for the downtrodden. She was an integral part of "Team Arrow", and he knew he'd never quite find someone like her, even if he actively looked for it.

He had started to wonder though, if she just simply had a death wish, or if she was so intent on making him proud of her, that she'd brave situations that she knew were too much for her to handle. He'd once told her, that she'd always be "his girl", he now wondered if that was too much pressure.

The door at the top of the stairs opened slowly and John Diggle came into the lair, greeting Oliver with a small nod of his head.

"I hear you finally let Felicity off the hook about that burglar incident last week." Oliver returned to looking over his collection of trick arrows and refused to acknowledge what Diggle had said. "I guees we're not talking about it then?" he continued as he walked calmly towards the screen where they at the present moment kept surveillance info on a new gang of robbers in Starling City.

"It was never my intention to have her…ON… the hook for anything, Diggle. She knows what she did was irresponsible and that's all I wanted for her to realize." Oliver said as he rose from the table of trick arrows and placed a few of the explosive ones in his quiver. "She never should have been there, and you know that. Next time, if you have any inclination that she's attempting to do something like that, please restrain her…or tell me, so I can do it." Diggle chuckled softly.

"That's about as likely as me getting an actual disguise, like the rest of you guys…"

Oliver rolled his eyes and joined his closest confidante at the surveillance screen. "How about a ski mask?" John's only response was a grunt that said more than any thousand words.

"I guess that's a no then."