⁂ ⁂ ⁂ ARROW ⁂ ⁂ ⁂
Therapy sucks.
That basically sums up his last five weeks perfectly.
Every Tuesday during his lunch hour, he has an appointment with Dr. Snow. And then every Friday afternoon, he has a joint session with Felicity.
For a little over a month, their therapist has been chipping away at his walls with a maddening patience, freeing some deep-seated issues that he's been quite happily ignoring for the last twenty-ish years of his life.
Sometimes the sessions leave him feeling raw and broken, making him tumble down a road of self-doubt. Sometimes they leave him angry and feeling helpless. And sometimes, very rarely, they give him a feeling of peace and understanding.
It's an excruciating process. One that he'd happily stop right now if it weren't for the promise he'd made to Felicity.
Stopping now would mean giving up on them for good and taking the easy way out. And he can't do that. Not again.
He might mostly hate the countless therapy sessions he's been to, but he knows that this is his chance to be with Felicity again. And god knows he desperately wants to be with her again, but that's not always enough to keep his doubts and frustrations at bay.
It's after a more taxing one-on-one session that he blurts out, "Do you think we'll make it?"
Dr. Snow smiles kindly at him, not at all deterred or surprised by his slightly unnerved outburst. "That's up to you. I've seen many things happen in these four walls that I could've never predicted. If it's meant to be, you'll find a way."
How very reassuring.
Isn't that a little too 'que será, será' for a professional?
"But we're not a completely lost cause, right?" he presses on, needing a more direct confirmation of some progress from her.
"The fact that you're here, trying to make things work, should be answer enough."
"It's just that… I… we've been coming here for weeks, and yet I feel like I'm moving in circles, instead of getting anywhere."
"That's where I respectfully disagree. Because you have made progress," she assures him gently, making a little flare of hope erupt in his chest. "But therapy, much like life, isn't a straight line. Sometimes there are obstacles in our way and we have to adjust our course and take a detour, sometimes we have to stop and take a break, sometimes we have to take a step back and try a different path. As long as you don't lose sight of your goal, and as long as you keep moving and trying, I can assure you that you'll find your way to where you want to be," she explains, and he nods along in understanding.
"But you have to accept that this process takes time. And as frustrating as it may be, along the way you'll make mistakes that will make you take a step backwards. And that's absolutely okay. No one is expecting you to be perfect. So, I would advise you to stop trying to do everything perfect in here, because that's an impossible task to achieve. Let yourself make mistakes and learn from them."
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
Dr. Snow's words follow him around for the rest of the day, occupying his mind so much that hours later he barely registers the knock on his office door.
"Hey," Felicity's all too familiar voice greets him, a welcome surprise after a dull day. "Hope you don't mind, but I called your assistant earlier to see what the rest of your day looked like and she said you'd probably be staying late to review the budget proposal for your program before you give it to the board," she explains in a rush, moving closer to his desk.
She's carrying her purse in one hand and a white paper bag with the logo of his favorite Chinese place in the other. His lips curve upwards, but it must look a little forced, because her own smile falters. "Everything okay?
He exhales slowly, rubbing his hands over his tired face. "Yeah, I'm just frustrated and tired."
She smiles at him encouragingly, sitting down in one of the visitor chairs, waiting for him to elaborate.
"Getting this project on the road is proving to be really difficult and this is the fourth reduced budget proposal I've had to present. And if the board denies this one, I won't be able to do even a fraction of what I initially set out to do, which just sucks because you'd think they'd be interested in investing in the future of the company, but instead it seems like they just care about ensuring their own paycheck for the next few years. It's ridiculous."
Wow, apparently, he really needed to get that off his chest.
"I'm sorry they're giving you such a hard time," she says, her brows furrowing, and he can basically see the wheels turning, trying to come up with a solution to help him.
He can't help but smile sadly. This is how they were at their best. Listening to the other's problems, trying to help in any way possible. Even if that only meant encouraging words and a supportive smile. How long before their break-up had they stopped doing that?
"I'm meeting with Walter later this week to see if he has any ideas on how to make this happen in a way where it actually has an impact." A thought hits him then. "Speaking of which, I might have to skip our meeting with Dr. Snow on Friday, because Walter is going to Europe on the weekend and only has a few appointments left on Friday afternoon and I'm not sure when exactly those are."
"Oh, yeah, that's fine," she's quick to assure him with an agreeing nod. "It's not like they're compulsory, and meeting Walter is more important."
"I didn't mean to imply that it's more important than our therapy sessions," he tries to argue, suddenly feeling like he's walking on thin ice. Putting work above the other person was part of their relationship's demise, and he doesn't want to fall back into old patterns that have proven to be destructive. "Maybe I can postpone the new budget proposal until he's back in three weeks."
"What? No," she looks at him perplexed, eyebrows drawing together. "The world won't end because we skip one session together, Oliver. This project is important to you and if Walter can help you make it a reality, you should get his opinion sooner rather than later. Don't feel guilty for skipping a meeting because of circumstances that are out of your control. Plus, I think we're both clocking more than enough hours with Dr. Snow. One missed meeting won't tip the scale."
"Are you sure? I don't want you to think I'm not taking this seriously," he questions, just to be on the safe side. God, he hates feeling this insecure.
"Very sure," she tells him, nodding along. "If it makes you feel better, we can see if she can see us at a different time or on Saturday. I'll see her tomorrow, you saw her today. It's all good."
He thinks back to his time with Dr. Snow today, feeling a new wave of uncertainty and frustration roll through him.
Of course, Felicity picks up on his shift in moods. "Bad session?" she asks with a sympathetic and slightly worried frown.
"Not bad, per se," he sighs. "It was more like a little reality check that I wasn't ready for."
She nods understandingly and motions to the bag in front of her. "How about we dish up before everything gets cold, and you tell me about it? Maybe some one-on-one talk without the doc looking over our shoulders would do us some good?"
"Yes, please," he huffs out with a little nervous chuckle.
Most of the times, he finds it really unnerving and stilting to have someone else in the room when they talk about more serious things, who's analyzing every word.
They move over to the sitting area, Oliver grabbing a bottle of wine, glasses, plates and cutlery from a cabinet on the far side of his office.
The feeling of familiarity is almost crushing. This is another thing they used to do all the time. Whenever one of them had to work late, the other would stop by and make sure they had dinner and actually took a break, even if it was just for half an hour. Yet another thing they'd stopped doing somewhere along the way.
"I missed this," Felicity gives voice to his own thoughts when they settle in on the couch with a plate of food each.
"Yeah, me, too," he sighs, leaning back contently, but not before seeing the same questioning glint in her eyes that just begs to know: when did we go so wrong?
"So," she breaks the silence that surrounds them, "you wanna talk about your session with Dr. Snow?"
He nods, chewing slowly on his food as he tries to come up with a good way of phrasing everything that's going on in his head. "I'm just a little frustrated with my progress. Or maybe I just underestimated the effort and time it would take to… get somewhere. I don't know."
"It was like that for me too in the beginning. I felt like I was moving in circles, always coming back to the same questions, the same conclusions, the same pain."
That sounds familiar.
"How did you move past it?"
"Time," she shrugs and tilts her head. "And accepting that everything I lived through is in the past and therefore cannot be changed. That every moment and all of the pain it caused shaped the person that I am today. And as much as I hate everything I went through in the past two years, I love who I've become as a person. I know it sounds crazy, but I needed all of that pain and all of that anger to reach new levels. And I needed to do that by myself. For myself."
"So, it's a good thing we broke up?" he asks, feeling his heart drop in his chest.
"It wasn't good. The pain we both felt wasn't good," she clarifies decidedly, putting her plate down and squeezing his knee. "But I would argue that maybe it was necessary at the time."
Per Dr. Snow's suggestion, he silently counts down from ten and takes a deep breath, letting her words sink in, before reacting.
It does little to soothe the sting. Her words are like a slap to the face. She thinks their break-up was a positive thing.
"How can you think that way?" he blurts out, unable to contain or soften his reaction. Not hungry anymore, he puts his plate next to hers on the table.
Her face softens. "What's the alternative, Oliver? To obsess over all the negative things?"
"No, of course not, but you said it yourself that we shouldn't forget what happened and learn from it."
"I'm not forgetting! Believe me, I'm well aware of what happened, but I'm choosing to be positive about it instead of concentrating on the crappy parts. I'm choosing to look to the future instead of letting myself be weighed down by the past."
"'The positive' being that we ended our relationship and that you're better off without me in your life. That's great. Tell me again why we're here if you don't actually want me in your life?" Deep down he knows that snapping at her isn't helping either of them, but her comments just add to his frustration and the only way he knows how to get rid of them is by lashing out, apparently.
"You know this is exactly the kind of behavior that landed us in trouble in the first place. Don't just assume things!" she points out calmly with a perfectly arched eyebrow that just fuels his anger.
"Oh, fantastic, so I'm to blame for fucking things up this time, too?"
"Oliver, you gotta understand that you didn't fuck things up the first time." Well, that's certainly not what he was expecting to hear. "We both messed up. Just look at the state our relationship was in when it ended. I was too focused on work to see what that was doing to our relationship, and instead of communicating with me you decided to lash out by hurting me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but neither of those things should've happened in a healthy relationship."
"So, you're basically saying we would've broken up eventually, even if that night hadn't happened?" he questions, voice full of doubt, his anger slowly receding.
"I actually asked Dr. Snow about this recently," she says, licking her lips. "Without realizing it we created cracks in the very foundation of our relationship long before we broke up. And those cracks would've shown at one point or another. I think it's debatable if we would've broken up, but we were definitely nearing a tipping point that would've impacted our relationship one way or another."
"Okay, so we didn't have a perfect relationship. That's hardly news. What I don't understand is how you can say breaking up was better than working things out."
"I'm not saying it was better," she corrects him with a long sigh. "I'm saying that knowing everything we know now, not everything that came of our break-up was negative. At least not for me. Because I know that I've made a huge step forward in my personal development."
"A huge step you couldn't have made while being with me?" he questions pointedly, feeling his annoyance rise again.
She opens and closes her mouth without any sound coming out before she shakes her head. "No. Look, Oliver, you always made me feel incredibly safe. Being with you was, for a long time, a promise of a certain future full of love and stability, personal and financial. Even though the latter was obviously never a reason to be with you, but rather came as an added perk," she's quick to add. But he already knew that with complete certainty. Felicity Smoak was never with him for his money or his family's influence.
"But as much as I loved you and as much as I loved being with you, I needed to find out who I was without you. I needed to prove myself that I could be fine without you," she continues to explain. "Dr. Snow suggested that with throwing myself into work like I did, I was trying to do just that without really knowing that there was a deeper reason behind it. She thinks that before I took a job at your family's company, completely intertwining our lives, I needed to prove to myself that I deserved to get that job and that I earned it on my own, independent of your family's influence."
He lets her words settle in his mind, using the new pieces of information to fill in a few of the blanks that litter his view of the big picture back then.
It makes sense.
And it's definitely not the first time he's heard her talk about her need to make a name for herself, but he'd never realized just how deeply it affected her.
"But you still accepted my mom's job offer before the break-up," he reminds her, thinking back to what she'd told him during Sara's video shoot setup.
"Yeah, well, looking back to that moment now, I don't think I was really ready for it. I just let myself be persuaded by a high position, a lucrative contract and the thought of giving you what you wanted. I made the decision for the wrong reasons and too early on, and I think there was a pretty big chance I would've come to regret that decision.
"After breaking up with you, I went from having everything seemingly figured out about my future with marrying you and taking a long-term position at QC to having none of that. It turned my whole life upside down and I had to adjust. And I did. I still quit my job with Ray because I never wanted to go to London and I just didn't see a fulfilling future at his company anymore. So, I started to freelance as a cyber security consultant and that was the best decision I could've made."
"Hence, your idea that something positive came of our break-up," he offers and she nods in confirmation.
"I still think at least 95% of it sucked, but I like the thought that all the pain wasn't for nothing and we actually got something good out of it."
He lets everything sink in, his heart dropping a little in defeat when he realizes what kind of a long road he has ahead of himself to reach a similar level of acceptance and optimism.
And for what?
Listening to her has made one thing quite clear: she's happy without him.
So what will they be when all is said and done and he's worked out how to forgive himself? Will they be friends?
They'd talked about another chance before, but now he's not so sure that's actually in the cards for them. Not when she's clearly better off without him.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂ ARROW ⁂ ⁂ ⁂
She takes in his slumped shoulders, nervous fingers rubbing together.
"What is it?" she prods softly, hoping he'll open up to her.
He hesitates, visibly weighing his options, so she reaches out and intertwines their fingers in silent support.
His brows draw together in a frown while he stares down at their tangled fingers.
Come on, Oliver.
She stays silent, waiting for his decision whether to share what's on his mind or not, knowing that pushing him more won't do them any good.
"I'm scared of losing you again," he finally admits quietly, stroking her fingers almost reverently, like there's a chance she might disappear any second.
"What makes you think that?"
He presses his lips together, tilting his head in thought, still searching for those right words.
"We… we never really talked about what we are... or could be," he starts his explanation. "I know that there were certain things implied when we decided to work on us, but we never really said where we're headed with this. Are we trying to be friends? Are we trying to rekindle our romantic relationship? Are we just trying to put this whole mess behind us and go our separate ways when all is said and done?"
The words are just bubbling out of him now, and that more than anything tells her that this is something he's been stewing over for quite some time and something that's fueling his doubts about them.
"And with this whole limbo we're in, I'm terrified that while I try to figure out myself, you'll meet someone else or realize that I'm a lost cause or that you'd just be better off without me," he continues before she can formulate a response, effectively rendering her speechless. "And the more time I take, the more probable that possibility becomes. And then what do I do?"
It's only when taking in his words and his desperate look that she realizes just how right he is. Because they haven't defined what they are or what they wanna be. Not out loud, anyway. Because in her mind it's quite clear that she wants a relationship with him again.
Well, hi, communication. Or rather, lack thereof. Good to know you're still around.
She could slap herself. There she was just a few minutes ago, pointing out this exact behavior and now she's guilty of making the same mistake, and by extension making Oliver doubt everything they're doing here.
Use your words, Smoak.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, looking for the right way to express her feelings. "It was so clear to me in my mind, because we're both here and trying that I completely forgot to talk to you about it."
She grabs his hands and squeezes them tightly, hoping to dispel some of his nervous energy. "I'm not looking for anyone else. I don't want anyone else," she tells him, making sure her voice matches the confidence of her words. "I'm hoping that when we're both ready for it, we'll try to be together again."
His breath catches in his throat and his eyes dart between hers. "You really want that?"
"Yeah," she nods with a huge smile when she sees his lips tick up hopefully.
"And how will we know when we're ready?"
"I figured we'd just know when it happens," she shrugs. "But, like I said, until then I have no desire to be with anyone else. And I've enjoyed getting to know you again these last six weeks, so I really have no reason to go after anyone else."
"Get to know me again?" he questions, his expression half thoughtful, half amused. "You already know me. Probably better than anyone."
"Well, yes. And no. It seems to me like I'm not the only one that has changed in the past one and a half-ish years."
He clears his throat uneasily, leaning back a little, looking nervous and uncertain again.
"In a good way, Oliver," she assures him and his expression relaxes a little, turning curious.
"How so?"
"I don't really know how to explain it, but you carry yourself differently. A lot less cock-sure and more… considerate," she says with a little nervous laugh. "Seeing you be so invested and passionate about the company is… amazing. You used to be so reluctant to take responsibility at QC because you didn't think you earned the right, but now you stand up for what is inherently yours." She shifts in her seat, hoping he won't take this the wrong way. "And this is coming from someone who's loved you even when you had your terrible serial killer haircut and who's watched you grow up in and after college. You were already amazing back then, but… you've kinda upgraded."
He stares at her for agonizing seconds before his lips curl into a cocky smile. "Yeah?"
"Yes, Oliver," she smiles at him, letting him be smug for a little bit. "And I'm not the only one who thinks that. Your parents are really proud of you, too. They keep talking about you during our brunches. Sometimes, I think they're doing that to make sure I don't forget about you."
He huffs out a breath and shakes his head a little, but doesn't try to argue with her. "So, is this the point where I admit that you were right?" he asks after a few more moments, but she's not sure what he's referring to. "Maybe something good did come of our break-up. At least in our professional lives."
She can't argue with that. From a professional standpoint, the time since the break-up has been a blessing for her. After not having any semblance of a social life anymore, because for a while there she avoided her friends and their questions, she threw herself completely into her work. Thanks to her tireless effort she's worked up a solid client base that keeps her busy and that pays extremely well. Even Ray Palmer has come knocking on her door when a hacker had attacked his company's system.
She's doing well, making a name for herself as the go-to-woman for businesses that look to create or reinforce their cyber security. There are few people in the country that match her skills.
But anything outside of work is a bit… dull.
She'd tried the whole dating thing, but none of the guys she went out with (a lot of them referrals from Sara's gym classes) ever sparked anything in her. Maybe that was the universe's way of giving her a hint that looking for another man wasn't the solution. Because she'd already found The One.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
"Do you think it'll ever stop feeling like there's an anvil sitting on my chest when we're talking about our relationship?" he questions quietly into the comfortable silence that had fallen over them in the past few minutes while they both processed all that's been said tonight.
She knows that feeling all too well. The way you lose your breath and feel like your throat is constricting, an immeasurable weight holding you down.
She licks her lips, not sure how to answer him with words, so she slowly brings up her fingers to his shirt. Without his tie that he'd already discarded before she came to stop by this evening, she has easy access to the buttons of his white shirt. With practiced ease that just seems to come flying back to her movements she unbuttons one after the other until she can part the material enough to carefully press her palm to his chest, right over his heart. All while his watchful eyes study her every move.
"Here?" she asks quietly, tapping her finger against his skin.
He slams his eyes shut and nods as he breathes in sharply.
They're so close.
Her heart is beating right out of her chest, his doing the same under her palm.
And then suddenly out of nowhere his lips are on hers for the briefest of touches, giving her a second to feel him, to taste him before they break apart.
Wait! Did she pull back or did he?
"Felicity." The desperate plea in his voice and the anguish in his eyes tells her that she was the one who pulled back and now he's terrified that he just destroyed everything they've worked for.
She frames his face with unsteady hands, needing to buy herself a second to process.
She quickly scrambles together her options:
Option a) she steps on the brakes and tells him that they should take more time.
Pro: they could take the time to make sure that they're ready for this.
Con: she doesn't really want to wait any longer, because kissing Oliver is addictive and it feels so right. Plus, he already looks devastated, she doesn't want to make him feel worse.
Option b) she waits for him to do something.
Pro: he'd have to make a decision and she wouldn't have to take the responsibility.
Con: that's not very relationship-y. They should decide together. Plus, he looks like he's about to puke from nervousness.
Option c) they talk.
Pro: they'll have a mature conversation and make an informed decision about their future. Together.
Con: that probably means no more kissing for the foreseeable future, because the smart thing would probably be to take this nice and slow and ease back into a relationship.
"I love you," she whispers into the tense silence instead.
Damn it, that wasn't one of the options.
"Wh… What?" he stammers.
She chuckles at his bewildered and yet adorably hopeful expression, feeling giddy and empowered after saying the words out loud. "I love you, Oliver," she repeats with a shrug, loving how easily and naturally the words roll off her tongue after almost two years of not doing so. Like it's just meant to be.
"I love you and I wanna be with you. And I know that I was just talking about finding the moment when we're both ready. But maybe I was wrong, maybe we don't need to have everything figured out to be ready, maybe we just need to be willing."
"Are you sure we're ready?"
"No," she huffs out. "But maybe we don't need to be ready. Maybe we just need to be willing. Plus, we have Dr. Snow on our side who'll help us navigate this and we might as well be together while we figure things out, right?"
He tightens his jaw, considering her words before he nods in agreement.
This time, their lips meet in the middle, both of them giving into the urgency of their long-awaited reunion. They fall in sync immediately, like they haven't taken a really long break from doing this. It comes naturally to them. And it's that thought that makes Felicity believe that maybe just maybe they're meant to be.
Maybe everything they went through, all the pain and anger, was meant to shape them into the people that they are today. Maybe they were always meant to take that break and go on a journey to find themselves, before they could be truly perfect for each other.
Either way, with everything she's learned about herself, about him and about their previous relationship, she knows two things with absolute certainty: she loves this man and she wants to spend the rest of her life with him.
"Ahem," a throat clearing rips them right out of their blissful little bubble of re-exploring each other's bodies. "Oliver, darling, I know that it's after hours and the building is mostly deserted, but I'd still appreciate it if you kept your… liaisons out of the office," the serious, slightly annoyed voice of none other Moira Queen rings through the open space of his office.
They both freeze, lips still hovering above one another, a fraction of an inch apart.
Oh, crap.
This is not good.
She quickly takes stock of their new position. (How long have they been making out?) She's straddling his stomach, her chest pressed to his, while he's lying flat on the couch. Her hands are on either side of his waist. Don't ask her when she (or he?) unbuttoned the rest of his shirt. Right now, the only thing separating them from Moira's undoubtedly judgmental glare is the back of the couch that provides just enough cover for Felicity to hide behind.
Oliver is being no help whatsoever, looking at her with wide eyes, a mixture of shock and amusement. He gives her a little helpless shrug and pecks her lips.
She takes a deep breath and sits up, taking matters into her own hands. "Hi, Moira," she wheezes out, completely failing to sound even remotely casual.
"Felicity, dear," the older woman acknowledges, not quite able to reign in her shock. "This is… a surprise."
"Yup," she answers, chuckling nervously while Oliver discretely buttons his shirt.
"I certainly wasn't expecting to see you here," his mother continues. "My son hasn't made me aware of the fact that you're back together. Or you, for that matter. We had brunch the other week and you didn't mention that you were in contact with Oliver again."
Oliver sits up then, the momentum of his movement sending Felicity sliding down his abs and into his lap. God damnit, that was sexy.
"That's because this is a recent development, mother," he tells her with a tight smile, his body tense like he's preparing for a fight.
"I see," Moira responds simply, dark blue eyes watching them carefully. "But you are indeed back together? Or is this a less permanent… arrangement?"
Is Moira Queen asking them if they've turned into fuck buddies?
Felicity would find that way funnier if it wasn't for the sudden glint of uncertainty in Oliver's eyes.
"Yes, we're back together and, hopefully, it's very permanent," she replies confidently, never taking her eyes off Oliver's. She hopes her own gaze holds even a fraction of the never-ending love and adoration she sees forming in his.
He leans up to press a quick peck and a murmured "I love you" against her lips before tearing his eyes from hers and back to his mother to await her judgment.
The Queen matriarch regards them closely for a few agonizing seconds before she tightens her grip on the straps of her designer purse, her lips stretching into a genuine smile. "Well, in that case: carry on," she tells them with a light wave of her hand and turns around to leave.
That sounded like approval, if Felicity ever heard one.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
They start dating in earnest after that night.
Dr. Snow just smiles at them happily when they tell her the next week and the continue their work like before.
Just like their first relationship, it's not all sunshine and unicorns, but after everything they've learned about themselves and each other, they're better equipped to deal with the occasional bump in the road.
They end up keeping their relationship a secret for almost three months. Neither of them is keen on being scrutinized and judged by the press again, so they have most of their dates in the safety and comfort of either of their homes. They only really go out on public dates when they're outside of Starling City where people don't care nearly as much about what the billionaire heir's personal life looks like.
They also choose to keep it from their friends for a little while after swearing Moira to secrecy. It starts out as an attempt to avoid the inevitable 'I told you so's, but quickly turns into a fun cat and mouse game that often ends with them finding each other for stolen moments in dark hallways or closets, before sneaking off together to go home.
That all comes to a screeching halt one sunny Saturday afternoon seven weeks into their relationship.
They're just lazing around on Oliver's couch, watching old episodes of Game of Thrones, spent after a night (and morning) celebrating the board's approval of his newest budget proposal, when they hear a knock on his door.
He quickly disentangles himself from their cuddling session and finds sweatpants and a shirt to put on while Felicity burrows deeper into the blankets after losing her main source of warmth.
"That better not be Mrs. Vernon asking you to look for her stupid cat again," she grumbles into her pillow, making Oliver laugh loudly on his way to the door. She's pretty sure the old lady regularly sets loose her cat on the street to have an excuse to ogle Oliver while he helps her look for it. Not that she can blame the woman. There's a lot of yumminess to be ogled.
She hears the door open and multiple footsteps. Oh great, Mrs. Vernon brought some of her friends along to join her in the ogling.
"Oliver, man, I'm sorry to just barge in here, but we gotta talk," she hears Tommy Merlyn's voice echo through the open space.
Oh crap.
"What he's trying to say is that this is an intervention, big bro," adds an amused feminine voice. Thea!
Double crap.
She sinks lower into the blankets, luckily completely hidden from their view by the back of the couch. She vaguely feels like she's been in this situation before. Albeit with more clothes on.
"Guys, why the hell would I need an intervention?" Oliver asks dumbfoundedly and she can just imagine the confused look on his handsome face.
"Because it looks like you're going off the rails." That's Diggle.
What the fuck?
"What are you talking about?"
"You've skipped almost all of our nights out in the past two months and when you join us you always end up leaving early. You go off the grid for entire weekends and dodge all of our questions," Laurel, ever the lawyer, lists their arguments.
"Not to mention the women's clothes I've seen scattered all over your place the few times I've been over to check on you," Diggle adds. "And the hickeys you sport all the time now."
"You know we're here for you if you need us, right?" Tommy queries gently. "You don't have to drown your feelings by going on party binges and having meaningless sex."
Okay, woah, their sex is definitely not meaningless. And they only drink the really expensive wine.
Oliver stays silent for a few seconds, probably trying to figure out how to get rid of them. "Look, guys, I appreciate you coming over and worrying about me, but I can assure you that I'm fine."
"That's usually code for 'I'm not fine'," Sara chimes in.
Seriously?! Are all of their friends here right now?
This is so bad.
And also really sweet of them, she has to admit.
If only they could've done this when she wasn't hiding half naked under a few blankets on her secret/not-ex-anymore boyfriend's couch.
"Well, in this case it really means that I'm fine. Okay?!" Oliver throws back. "Now if you could all leave, that would be great."
"Why are you trying to get rid of us?" Laurel questions, suspicion rising in her voice.
Tread lightly, Oliver.
"Because I have company and I have no desire to explain to her why my friends barged in on our time together," he growls in response.
Nope. Wrong thing to say.
"So, who's the skank?" Thea asks snidely, and Felicity realizes belatedly that her voice is coming closer. "Seriously, Ollie, you didn't even sink so low after your break-up with Felicity, and now you're turning into early college years, douchebag Ollie who goes from one one-night-stand to the next?"
"Who says she's just a one night stand?"
Digging a deeper hole there, buddy.
"Well, great, if you're so serious about her, then you won't mind introducing us to her."
Yeah, he walked right into that trap by his devious little sister.
"Well… uh… you see..."
Poor guy.
Lifting her arm to make her presence known, she slowly sits up, making sure that the blankets cover her naked torso. "For the record, I'm neither a skank nor a one-night-stand."
"Felicity?!"
"Yup, hi, how're you guys doing?"
"What are you doing here?" Tommy screeches. "More importantly, what are you doing here with sex hair?"
Is her hair really that bad?
"Please tell me you're not just fucking around," Thea groans, still looking shell-shocked.
"Okay," Oliver jumps in. "a) language, Speedy, and b) why does everybody think we've become… friends with benefits?"
"Who's everybody?" Laurel presses in her best lawyer cross-examination voice.
Felicity clears her throat, a little relieved when Oliver tosses her a discarded dress shirt she can put on. "Moira might have walked in on us in Oliver's office."
"Oh, eww, gross. I'm never sitting on that couch again," Thea complains loudly.
"You might also wanna avoid the desk," Felicity mumbles under her breath, earning herself a pointed look from Oliver who's the only one close enough to hear her.
"So, instead of going off the rails, you've been secretly dating Felicity for the past two months?" Diggle gets them back on track.
Oliver nods his confirmation, sitting down next to her, entwining their fingers.
"Not to be the buzzkill here," Tommy starts carefully, "but are you sure this is a good idea? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for you two being back together, but I just wanna make sure you know what you're doing. I'd hate to see you two go through another break-up. God knows it was hard enough the first time."
A quick squeeze of his fingers keeps her boyfriend from reacting. "We're sure, Tommy," she tells her friend, but looking at the entire group. "We can't give you or ourselves, for that matter, any guarantees, but I can promise you that we're in a much better place than we used to be and I have no intention of ever letting him slip through my fingers again. We both made mistakes and we learned from them and we'll do our damndest to make this work."
Oliver grins broadly at her, leaning in for a quick kiss. "What she said," he simply tells the group.
Their explanation is met with silence until Sara claps her hands together in happiness. "Well, I'll be the first to say that I'm very happy that you two got your shit together. Now how about you get dressed and we all go out to dinner and drinks tonight? Your treat, of course, because you owe us for keeping your reunion from us." She herds all the others who are voicing their agreement to the door, stopping in the frame. "Oh, and, by the way, feel free to express your undying gratitude for making all this"-she motions vaguely towards them-"possible, by naming your first child after me."
Their shocked but happy laughter chases her out the door.
Turns out that maybe being friends with a Buzzfeed video producer isn't the worst thing.
The End
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
They say everything it happens for a reason
You can be flawed enough but perfect for a person
Someone who will be there for you when you fall apart
Guiding your direction when you're riding through the dark,
Oh that's you and me
- "You and Me" by You+Me