Chapter 4

"Are you sure about this?" Felicity asked, nervously wringing the straps on her handbag.

"It will be fine, Felicity," Oliver reassured her. "Diggle is already inside and I'll be with you the whole way."

They were standing at the side entrance to Verdant, the first time Felicity had returned since the earthquake. It had been a few days since she and Oliver had talked, or as he put it, when she shouted at him and he had finally listened. Over the past few days Felicity had started to talk to Oliver about her nightmares, her real change of attitude coming when she went to visit Tommy and caught Oliver talking to him about the Island. If Oliver Queen with five whole years of issues could talk about it, her one night of hell could be talked about as well.

Oliver held out his hand, sensing that she needed a little push. "I need to have the computers set up and you know that if someone other than you does it, it will bug you endlessly," he prompted her.

"That's below the belt and you know it," she teased, taking his hand and letting him help her into the basement, over the still present rubble.

Oliver and Diggle had been working on the basement, on and off, over the last month. They had removed all the evidence of the Hood and stored it off site so a builder, paid a great deal of money for his silence, could assess and fix the ceiling. Everything else was left as it had been after the club had been hit by the earthquake. Piles of concrete that had once belonged to the ceiling along with a few metal supports littered the floor, crushed tables and equipment joining the mess. Felicity's computers had been totally wiped out. But luckily, for Oliver, the rubble was all aesthetic, the structural integrity of the building and the ceiling still holding.

Walking into the centre of the room Felicity took in the destruction, bathed in the light of six floodlights.

"It looked a lot worse when I couldn't see it all at once," Felicity said absently. She moved to inspect the mangled piece of metal that had been her desk, crushed by one of the bigger pieces of the roof. "You should get more tables like this," she said.

"It buckled, though," Diggle pointed out, suit jacket off and shirt sleeves rolled up as he pulled pieces of equipment out of the rubble.

Felicity shrugged, "Yeah, but it still stopped the giant rock from squishing me."

Oliver choked. "I'm sorry. You were under that?"

"Didn't have time to make it anywhere else." She shrugged again. "Now, do we want to put the computers in the same place, or move them to another part of the room? I was thinking we should put in a generator so in the event of a power out we aren't stuck down here in the dark. Not to mention the club will be able to stay open."

"That's a good idea," Diggle said when Oliver didn't answer right away. "Keep the computers where they were, the layout worked well. Right, Oliver?"

"Right," he said, eyes still bouncing from Felicity to her destroyed desk. She had come out of the basement with scratches and a nasty cut or two, but he hadn't thought that she had come that close to serious injury or death. Felicity had told him about that night, but it was now obvious that she had played down the danger to herself. He really was an idiot for not noticing. He cleared his throat, "Do you want to go upstairs now, get it over with?"

Felicity froze. "I suppose I should." She tried to smile, but it looked grim.

"Diggle," Oliver called.

"I'm with you," he said, walking over.

Together the three of them walked up the stairs and into the club. As soon as she saw the bar, Felicity froze. Oliver reached for her hand. "Talk us through it, Felicity. We're right here, you're safe and we're not going to leave you."

Her voice wobbled, but got stronger as she continued. "There were three of them looting the bar. One had a gun, the ringleader. When I got out of the basement he threatened me with it. They wanted a girl to go with their drinks, they said." Both Oliver's and Diggle's expressions darkened. "So when they gave me a glass of vodka and they were distracted I threw it in the gunman's face and tried to get out of there. I got two of them before the guy with the gun recovered."

Felicity raised her glass with the others, and then threw the contents right into the eyes of the gunman. He screamed in pain and while the other two were distracted, she grabbed a bottle under the bar with her free hand and smashed it over the head of the closest man with all her might. She jumped down behind the bar where the other man tried to grab her. The hours of practice in the basement with Diggle kicked in and she let him grab her arm only to flip him over her hip with his momentum. He landed, the air knocked out of his lungs and stayed down. But before she could run, the gunman recovered.

"Freeze," he shouted, gun once again trained on Felicity's head. She had no choice but to obey, and he stepped forward until the cold metal touched her forehead. She shivered and a cruel smile passed over his face. "You shouldn't have done that," he said and pulled the trigger.

"Felicity, shush, it's alright. It's just you, me and Diggle, here, no one else. You're safe, I promise." Slowly Felicity came aware of her surroundings. She was sobbing, Oliver holding her to his chest while Diggle kept a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Just breathe," he soothed. "What happened next?"

"Oliver," Diggle warned.

"She can take it," he smiled down at Felicity.

"He told me to freeze," she eventually got out. "He pointed the gun at me and walked forward until I could feel it on my head."

"You've been in that kind of situation before, Felicity," Oliver said. "What made this different?"

"He pulled the trigger," she gasped out.

"What?"

"He pulled the trigger, but there wasn't a bullet in the chamber."

"Oh, sweetheart," Diggle said, understanding hitting his features.

"Every time I hear a car backfire or a loud noise or a gunfight on the TV I think it's the gun finally going off. I know that it doesn't make sense, the guy shot off seven bullets as I ran to the basement, but I keep going back to the bullet that wasn't fired."

"You thought you were going to die," Oliver summed up.

She nodded weakly.

"But you didn't," he reminded her. "You got out. You got away."

"This here, confronting the scene, was good, Felicity," Diggle reassured her. "You won't magically go back to normal, but slowly, as you come to terms with nearly dying, things will get better."

"How?" she whispered.

"Eating right, exercising, doing things that make you feel alive. Not now, but another time I'll even take you to a shooting range, get you to shoot a gun, so that you can feel in control again."

"Okay."

"Is Carly at work today?" Oliver asked Diggle.

"Yeah, she's got the lunch shift."

"What do you two say to a lunch break? Have some of the best burgers in town."

"Sounds like a plan. Felicity?"

"Sure."

When they got there and Oliver ordered for all of them, she gave him a grateful smile as he added on a cup of peppermint tea.

Over the next few weeks, Felicity started to go back to her usual self. She still had nightmares, but they were no longer nightly. Between Diggle and Oliver, she was forced into eating properly and into a more frequent training regime. The recovery of the basement at Verdant was going slowly, Oliver pulled in all directions from all of his commitments.

Felicity knew she was on the mend when one day she was able to go into the basement by herself to set up the final stage of the computers. Afterwards she walked up into the still vacant club, untouched except for the reinforcement of the entrance doors and the rewired lighting. Taking a broom she started to sweep up the glass around the bar; pieces from the windows broken in the quake and pieces from broken bottles, smashed from the misfire of a gun. She didn't have a flashback and she didn't have a panic attack. It was only slightly uncomfortable and she went home and slept for a full eight hours that night, no nightmares at all.

She didn't watch crime dramas on the TV anymore, but she also didn't flinch at loud sounds. The worst she got was when she felt like someone was watching her, sending her into a few nights of bad dreams, but she shook it off as paranoia, for having not caught the three men that looted Verdant. She had flagged their descriptions on all her databases as well as several of the rarer bottles of alcohol they had stolen. Nothing had turned up yet and she suspected Oliver had wanted to ask her about it, but didn't want to push her. She was having a bet with Diggle to how long before he cracked and asked if she could find them so he could hood-up and visit them as the Vigilante.

It was late on Friday night and Felicity was in her office at the QC IT department, unwillingly working late unlike several weeks ago when she had used it as an excuse to avoid her problems. One of the servers had crashed just at the end of the day and she needed to get it back up and running before everyone returned in the morning.

Her phone rang and she picked it up, tucking it under one ear, not stopping her typing. "Hello?"

"Hey, Felicity, it's Oliver. I tried your cell, but you didn't answer."

"Sorry, I'm a little distracted."

"Oh?"

"I can't leave until I get the server back up and running and I had a bottle of wine at home waiting to be opened so I'm trying to get this done in time to still enjoy my Friday night."

"Drinking wine alone on a Friday night. That doesn't sound very social."

"Not like there is anyone else I know with nothing to do on a Friday night."

"You could ask me."

"I thought you were hanging out with your sister?"

"Her friend had boyfriend issues and she went to her house for an emergency girl's night."

"Oliver, are you asking me to ask you out, well not out-out, like a date, but more like a night out together, just us, which really does sound like a date now I think about it…You're just going to let me keep going while I dig myself a deeper hole aren't you?"

"I was thinking about it."

"Well, this discussion is futile, and therefore should be erased from your memory, because I have to finish my work and I don't know how long it will take."

"Another time then."

He hung up and Felicity held out the phone and looked at it like it was a computer mouse that had turned into the real, white, fluffy thing with a tail.

Shaking her head she returned to work.

Roy was going crazy. He was so close to the Vigilante, all it was that stood in his way was the quirky IT girl Felicity Smoak. And that was why, against his better judgement, he decided to confront her. At her home would be too threatening, so he decided on crossing paths with her at QC. The building's security was too good, so instead he snuck into the parking garage. He'd seen Smoak driving her car a few times and it didn't take him long to find it. She was one of the few people who bothered working late and her car was the only one left on that level of the garage.

It was over an hour since he rang up her office and got the engaged tone, when she emerged from the elevator, bag in hand and a sombre black coat over her bright pink skirt with matching lipstick. Even if she wasn't the only person in sight she would stand out.

Flipping his red hood up and over his face, he stepped out of the shadows.

Felicity jumped and redoubled the grip on her bag. "Are you okay?" she asked hesitantly. "Because you don't look okay, not that you look bad, you just look, uh…" she trailed off.

"Do you know the Vigilante?" Roy asked in a low voice.

"Excuse me?"

"Do you know the Vigilante?"

"Everyone knows the Vigilante. I mean he's on the news nearly every night. At first he was on in only the first part about crime sprees and threats to public safety but now he's on later and most people kind of think he's a hero. I'm one of those. Not a hero, but a person who thinks he's a hero, saving Starling City and all that."

"Do you know who the Vigilante is?" Roy asked stepping closer.

"No. Nobody does. He does wear the hood for a reason."

"Has the Vigilante ever contacted you?"

"Why would he contact me?"

"I've heard you are good at what you do."

"I work in an IT department. I can't see how that would mean I had contact with the Vigilante."

"Tell me what you know!" he ordered, out of patience.

A sound echoed through the underground level and Roy pulled out the gun he had acquired, pointing it near but not directly at Felicity. "Who else is here?" he demanded.

"I don't know," she said quietly, eyes riveted on the gun. "I mean it could be someone else who works here or one of the security guards."

"Shut up!"

"You asked," she muttered.

Roy was busy looking both ways, trying to figure out which way the sound had come from.

"Look," Felicity said, "you don't need me. We can both leave, right now, no consequences."

"No, I need you to contact the Hood for me."

"Why? He only goes after criminals, people who have failed the city. While you are doing a bang up job at being a criminal you are not failing the city."

"What? No! I'm not a criminal, not anymore."

It was this moment that Oliver took to tackle him to the ground.