"So what happened?" Aiden asked curiously,

"Well you were right and I met somebody I'd never thought I'd ever see again, I saw Oliver….well, I guess I should be saying the Arrow"

"So now what?" the question lingered in the open before Felicity finally answered.

"I guess I keep an eye on him, wouldn't want him to get hurt" she replied before heading off to work on their project.

A few days later Aiden informed Felicity that there was a lot of movement in a nearby factory. Instantly changing into the cat suit, Felicity set off towards the location.

When she arrived, once again she approached from high up.

Her eyes automatically flying to the green figure in the middle of the fight, this time she could tell he was on his last remaining set of legs, a few more hits and he would be on the floor. Instantly intervening (again) Felicity positioned herself directly behind him, stopping any more surprise attacks then proceeding to begin attacking the enemies that were already clearly outnumbering the two.

At the corner of her eye, she saw him drop to his knees after defeating another man. Automatically Felicity powered through, forcing all the men to direct the fight to her and not to Oliver, who was beginning to pass out on the floor. Defeating her current opponents, Felicity flipped herself over so she was in front of Oliver, protecting him from any further attacks. He saw what she was doing but stayed strong, not wanting the enemies to think he was weak. After what seemed like three minutes of fighting all the men were knocked out unconscious on the floor in a dog pile, meanwhile Felicity went straight to Oliver's side checking for a pulse.

"Hey don't give up on me, hold on" she tried to talk to him in the calmest but also the most soothing voice she had.

His eyes were open and fixed on her; if they weren't in this situation it would be kind of awkward, but she knew that look though it was the one of trust and composure.

Checking the area to double check it was clear, she turned her attention back to him and realised he hadn't stopped staring at her the entire time. Did he know? She could hear a voice but it was quite quiet.

Getting down on one knee beside him, Felicity propped him up so he was mainly leaning on her and he didn't seem to have a problem with that since he turned his head into her neck. Shuffling the two so most of his weight was on her, she pushed up to her feet with him heavily leaning on her.

Weaving their way down alleyways, Felicity felt Oliver's body becoming heavier by the second meaning he was losing consciousness, which wasn't good. Finally entering the warehouse, Felicity instantly put him on a nearby table as Aiden had already pulled up everything that was happening to his body.

"Oliver?" a voice came across louder than before, mainly because Aiden had connected to the Bluetooth.

"He's alright, unconscious but alive" Felicity answered

"Who's this? Where is Oliver?" the voice, which Felicity straightaway recognised as Dig, was becoming more distressed and panicky.

"He's at a warehouse; I'll send you the address just get here as quickly as you can" and with that Aiden shut down the communication and focused on Oliver. About ten minutes later Digg, Sara and Roy burst through the doors and towards her and Oliver.

"You must be Black Smoak" Digg stated and with her quick nod they all focused on the passed out figure on the table.

Everyone pitched in to make sure nothing was seriously hurt with him then quickly transferred him to the nearby couch. Apart from having slightly bruised ribs, an exhausted body and a bruised forehead, Oliver laid peacefully asleep on the couch nearby.

"Wow you really do remind me of somebody we used to know" Roy mentioned, now all the attention was focused on her still dressed as Black Smoak.

"Why is that I wonder?" Sara questioned her, drawing her brows together in concentration. From behind her came a low moan, twisting round to face him she saw that Oliver was beginning to wake up.

"Where am I?" he said as he slowly sat up, bringing his hand up to his forehead.

"That would be in my lair" Felicity answered him,

"You again…..and you guys…" letting out another low moan "… what happened?"

"Well yet again you got your arse kicked but to sum it all up; you got knocked unconscious, I saved your sorry arse then brought you back here to fix you up and told these lot where you were….oh and by the way you've got bruised ribs from last time" she says all in one go while everyone's staring at her with slightly confused looks.

"Why is everyone staring at me, it's really creepy" she said while walking off in the direction of the main computers with Oliver and the rest of the gang following closely behind her.

"Do you lot always stalk people?"

"You know my identity so now it's your turn, who are you really?" Oliver stated while still striding towards her, stopping just in front of her itching to take off her mask and reveal her true self, his injury getting completely forgotten about.

"Do you actually get the point of the secret identity?"

"Well you know mine"

"Yeah because your mask really hides it well" she retorted, sarcasm soaking her reply, "and besides do you really think you can trust me" by this point she was trying to come up with different reasons not to take off her mask.

"Well like you said, this is the second time you've helped me" dammit why did he have to bring logic into this.

"Never ask questions that you don't want to know the answer to" she shot at him; her excuses were rapidly running out.

"But I am asking the question that I DO want to know the answer to" he shot back.

Exhaling deeply she brought her hand halfway up to her mask and hesitated before pulling it off, did she really want them to know? After two years away from them, did she want to pull the plug? How would they react though? How would Oliver react? They were her team though, her friends, she couldn't shut them out forever. Shutting her eyes tightly Felicity gradually began to remove her mask and threw it on the table that Oliver had been laying on. As soon as the mask was off, gasps from Digg, Sara and Roy echoed around the place but Oliver remained shell shocked.

"Hey guys" Felicity stated to the group.

"….Felicity…" Oliver mumbled breathlessly, not believing she was actually there.

"Told you" Felicity murmured as she shrugged, before Aiden decided to cut in.

"Awkward" Aiden said in a teasing tone, receiving a glare from Felicity.

"Aiden you are not helping" she said, clenching her teeth.

Digg, Sara and Roy all looked towards the computers in pure shock, so they'd heard Aiden then- just great, another thing she had to explain to them about.

Meanwhile Oliver was still looking at Felicity; reaching to her he cupped either side of her face with his thumbs trailing over her cheeks. He was looking at her with such emotion it almost brought her to tears.

"I thought I'd lost you" he whispered breathlessly before pulling her into a tight hug, wrapping his arms protectively around her, so tight he was afraid to let go, afraid if he'd let go, he'd open his eyes and she wouldn't be there anymore. One arm banded tightly around her waist, engulfing her hip while the other submerged itself into her golden flowing locks and his face buried into the crook where her shoulder met her neck.

Time seemed to stop for Oliver, there he stood with the very person he thought was gone and he'd never get back in his life again wrapped securely in his arms and he wasn't planning on letting go any time soon. He didn't want that moment to ever end.

Inhaling deeply, he allowed all of his senses to be flooded by her scent. As Felicity hesitantly wrapped both her arms around his neck she felt him inhaling her scent and tighten his grip, he hadn't seen her for two years and by the way he reacted to her revealing her secret it had seriously affected him.

This was the first time in two bloody years that she was in Oliver Queen's arms and she missed him. She missed his scent being a mix of leather and sweat. She missed how overprotective he got of her. But the main thing she missed was when she was in his arms she had her innocence back; she was her old self again. It was like nothing had changed but the harsh reality of it being everything had changed and the worse part of it was she didn't even know if she could ever get that part of her back again.

A couple years ago when she was working in the I.T department of QC and you told her that in a few years she would miss being her usual babbling, almost-awkward, bright, innocent person that had her whole life ahead of her full of light then she would probably tell them that they needed to go see someone. But it was true; she missed that person in every single way, somebody who didn't have to worry about the horrors in life. In truth it was kind of ironic if you thought about it because everyone in Team Arrow had darkness in their life while she was the light of the team, their own personal sun but now it's completely changed.

Even though she wasn't looking at him, Felicity could feel all of Oliver's emotion flooding out of him like tears and he was trying desperately to hold in his tears that she could feel brimming in the corners of his eyes. Right now his face was buried in the mass of blonde curls cascading around her face. If all he wanted was to prove to himself that she was real and right there then she would contentedly stand there offering to him whatever he needed.

They stood there like this for what felt like a good few minutes before Digg cut in.

"Well, I don't know about anyone else but I think I need to hit the sack, Felicity is it alright if we stay here?" Digg asked while Oliver reluctantly released her but kept a firm grip on her waist.

"Of course, here I'll go bring out the extra beds" Felicity replied making her way to the storage closet, realising Oliver was trailing behind, she decided to just ignore him.

Setting up four extra beds, Team Arrow all made themselves comfortable before slowly drifting off. Obviously Oliver had placed his bed right beside Felicity's and when they settled down he laid facing her.

"Night guys and night Aiden" Felicity broke the silence as everyone exchanged goodnights before the lights were out.

Daylight streamed in through the cracks underneath the door, filling the warehouse.

Felicity woke up a few hours later to a close-up view of Oliver's bravata tattoo, fully opening her eyes, she realised sometime during the night he must've got into her bed because she was now cocooned in his arms with her head resting on his chest, tucked in under his chin. When she shifted slightly to get into a more comfortable position, he shifted bringing her with him so now she was lying practically on top of him while also tightening his grip again so there was now no way she could escape his grasp without waking him. His mouth began nuzzling her hair and Felicity heard his deep intake and him mumbling her name, apparently he was dreaming about her or something. Closing her eyes for a few minutes, she felt him stirring.

Opening her eyes, she revealed two deep blue eyes looking at her intently.

"Hmm…..morning" Oliver murmured into her hair.

"Morning, what was your bed uncomfortable?" Felicity asked in a teasing matter. He didn't answer her; instead he just closed his eyes again with a smile perched upon his face.

"Hey, sleeping beauty you need to let me get up because right now I can't move" she said with a smile, resting her head on top of her hands which were resting on his chest and looked up at him with a smile.

"What if I don't want to let you go, what if I want to stay like this forever" he replied, holding her more securely.

His statement received a slight laugh from her. Finally after what seemed like eternity he loosened his grip on her so she could get up but she had little trouble extracting herself from his grasp because he seemed quite reluctant to letting her go.

Everyone seemed to be sleeping in. Glancing back to Oliver, he was now lying in the part of her bed that she had just occupied.

"Hey Aiden, how far along are you with our little project?" Felicity asked.

"It's now completed, but are you sure you want to go through with it, you have no idea what could've happened to you" Aiden replied with a tad bit of concern filtering his voice, this didn't go unnoticed by the group because now the rest of the four members were standing behind her with their brows raised in confusion.

Apparently they weren't fully asleep.

"I have to find out….I have to know what happened" Felicity replied
"Alright, but if it gets too much I'm turning it off and continuing another day, capesh"

"Fine but I can handle it okay and you really need to stop watching all those TV programmes"

"Yeah that's not happening"

"Kind of figured" Felicity huffed.

"Felicity what's he on about?" Oliver questioned now wide awake and quite serious. Taking a deep breath Felicity explained.

"Everything that you've seen me do, all the fighting isn't completely me because I was injected with a serum when I was kidnapped and it's turned me into a sort of a weapon whether I like it or not but things didn't go….as well during the entire time because well….." Felicity described before lifting her shirt up, revealing the severe gashes and scars trailing along her stomach and down her body but also on her back too. There were various kinds of inflicted wounds/scars; burns, knives, electric and bullet. As soon as she showed the group they all were frozen in place, then a look of rage lit up in their eyes. Oliver's hands clenched tightly into fists and she knew it was his way of trying to contain the rage.

"That's the difference between you lot and me….you lot actually know how you got your scars and what they did to you and why….but I don't-" focusing her gaze on a spot on the floor she continued "- the month following when I got kidnapped is a complete blur to me, I can't remember anything about it at all, the only clear reminder is pain so if all I can remember is pain then it must've been extremely painful and full of it"

"Why didn't you come back?" Sara was the one to break the trance.

"Because I couldn't, I promised myself that I would learn to control myself before I did anything because at first I couldn't control my strength or any feelings that came with it"

"We could've helped you, we helped Roy" Oliver was hurt and it was clear in his voice.

"I know but for some reason I just couldn't"

She decided not to tell them about the fact that this serum inside of her could make her into a monster, who had no humanity, no care in the world because then they'd probably treat her like some sort of wild animal and that wouldn't help at all. She could control herself, so she'd just have to hope that nothing completely bad happened.

"Well you're here now, that's the main thing" Digg interjected with Roy shortly agreeing. Giving them a quick smile Felicity continued.

"Basically Aiden and I have created something that brings all the memories that I have but don't remember to the surface" Felicity said while walking over to the machine. It had a large frame with two strips of chains so you were chained up and dangling in mid-air.

"That doesn't look comfortable" Roy stated, crossing his arms.

"It's not supposed to be, the thing is if all I can remember is pain then I must've gone through something almost traumatic that changed me to end up with me like this so I might be put back into the position again but I don't trust myself to control it so the chains are there for reinforcements, they're made out of a metal that is unbreakable to human strength even mine, which is basically as strong as mirakuru but the thing is if my memory is pain then I'm going to have to inflict pain to myself to reach those memories " during the entire explanation, Oliver was looking out of his comfort zone and she knew he was going to voice his opinion on it.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked calmly, slowly stepping towards her and stopping short in front of her. She knew the self-control he had to use not to burst out in shouts.

"Like I told Aiden, I have to know what happened to me, I have to know what those bastards did to me or I'm just slowly going to go insane" closing the distance between them, Felicity placed a hand on his arm and squeezed a little, the same thing Oliver did with her, their way of saying 'I'll be fine'.

Smiling to everyone else, Felicity went to position herself in the chains only to find both Oliver and Digg helping out. With Digg on her left and Oliver on her right they lifted her up while Sara and Roy secured the chains around her wrists so her feet were clean off of the floor.

Backing away the team looked at her before Aiden turned on the machine, they had edited it a little so now everybody else could see exactly what she could but Felicity would be the one actually experiencing it.

She could tell they weren't comfortable with her putting herself back into the same position that she'd been in two years ago. She could do this. She was strong enough and besides there was a part of her that would never be at peace unless she found out what happened to her in the missing month of her past. Besides she wasn't alone, she had her friends there with her when she woke up but at what price? What will they see? What if they saw something that she didn't want them to ever know? To move on sometimes you have to take a couple of steps backwards first.

Relaxing her body, sagging in the chains, Felicity closed her eyes and welcomed the past with open arms.