TV Series: Arrow

Olicity fic

Genre: Romance/Drama

How she realized that he needed more than she could be

How he came to realize how much she meant to him

I own NOTHING, except for this take on their relationship.

Part I:

Felicity's perspective:

"Even though it makes no sense whatsoever…"

"Her?" is the first thought that Felicity has. "Why would he spend a second alone with, let alone have sex with, that imperious, high-and-mighty, uptight, cold bitch?" keeps running through her mind like a broken record. That thought and the sincere hope that Oliver can't hear the words that leak from her mouth as she is turning tail and retreating from this increasingly awkward situation.

"So we're not doing the… 'What happens in Russia stays in Russia'…?"

God, she can actually imagine how that sexy voice must have sounded like with Isabel, all deep, gravelly and throaty. Stop, focus, Diggle is in danger, and your brain has no place thinking thoughts like that. But Isabel, not that it could ever in a million years be her, geeky, awkward Felicity, but did it have to be that model carved from stone? How could he sleep with her? Focus! She tries to tell herself that she can freak out about this later. Right now, Diggle's safety needs to have top priority. But hey, at least Oliver sounds awkward, like he knows how dumb what he did was. Diggle had better be ok or she was really going to hate herself for being so stuck in the processing of this latest development. But, did it have to be Isabel friggin' Rochev?

Diggle looks so at peace with Lyla. It's not the kind of flirty, sexual-tension behavior that he and Carly had together, but it's a far more solid kind of connection, with almost a fire at the core. It's easy to tell from the way that they hold each other and stay physically connected together, if simply by interlocking their arms, that they rely on, trust and respect each other and have placed their lives in one another's hands time and time again.

The covert peeks that Isabel's sneaking at Oliver are beginning to sicken her. Is the woman delusional enough to think that what happened between her and Oliver was anything more than a complete and utter fuck-up on his part? Something that she, Felicity, is going to make sure he is fully aware of. She already has her entire set-down speech scripted in her head. Now all she needs to do is find some way of not going off on an innuendo-tangent that'll provide him with an escape-route.

"Hey, because of the life I lead, I just think it's better if I don't get involved with someone I could really care about"

He actually thinks that. He actually thinks that being the Arrow means that he can't find someone who cares about him, who he cares about, and be with them. Does being the Arrow mean he can't live? Does it mean that he doesn't get to love, just like everybody else? No. He has just as much of a right, and a need, to love and be loved as anybody else, and she can't believe he actually doesn't see that. He deserves, more than most of the people she knows, someone who will appreciate and value and love him, extraordinary, wonderful, selfless man that he is and has worked so hard and been through so much to become. He deserves the best. He deserves the most beautiful, most amazing, most perfect woman in the world, who'll be able to love him enough to make everything that the island did to him, and everything he survived to get through it, worth it. But finally seeing the way he sees himself, his present and future takes the wind out from beneath her sails though, and she doesn't have the heart to deliver the magnificent speech that she had planned.

In the event that a woman worthy of him doesn't exist, which isn't hard to believe, he certainly deserves a hell of a lot better than Isabel friggin' Rochev. And as she begins to walk away to do as he has asked her to, she has to turn around and tell him that, not because she can't stop herself, but because he deserves to hear it, so that, maybe one day, it'll sink in.

Isabel can sit there and smirk at her all she wants. She knows that Isabel thinks she's some floozy who Oliver uses for "extracurricular activities", and keeps around because he doesn't want to make her feel cheap, much the same as the rest of the people at Queen Consolidated who don't know her think. But that's only the people who don't know her properly, and no one at Queen Consolidated outside of Team Arrow knows Oliver properly. They don't see who he is, despite being around him every day, and they're the ones missing out. So they can gossip, and spread insane rumors all they want. It won't make their actual "extracurricular activities" together any less worth the abuse consequent of such total stupidity. Her making everything sound like an innuendo isn't helping though.

Felicity did initially resent Oliver making her his Executive Assistant, mainly because she had no desire to be seen as having the job of a glorified secretary. Not that there's anything wrong with the occupation itself, but because, with her qualifications, she has most definitely been trained for a far more specific and more near-and-dear-to-her-heart occupation. An unfortunate side-effect is the rumors spreading like wildfire throughout Queen Consolidated and the assumptions that people make about her character, but that has barely made a blip on her radar, because even if she faces it as she walks into the office every day, helping Oliver is and has been worth it. In helping him, she's found a purpose beyond any that she could have imagined before. And even if she still gives him hell whenever she can about her new position, she's kind of glad, because if anything, all of this, the new position in the company, the rumors, the good and the bad, they're all the outcomes of him letting her see a part of him that no one but Diggle knows. And that's too beautiful a thought to even sound like an innuendo in her head.