3.

What a wild dilemma, how to make it to the stars
on a highway slick with fear."

Joy Harjo, "Hold Up," 'How We Became Human'

o

By the time Felicity gets home she's exhausted. And, though all she wants is to hug her pillow, there is a whole torrent of thoughts lurking in the back of her head and she knows, just from the way they press against her frontal lobe, that despite her exhaustion there is not going to be any easy sleep tonight.

She closes the door behind herself, takes off her jacket, hangs it. Toes off her shoes and braces her palms on the small coffee table near the entrance. Leans her weight on them, takes a deep breath. Releases it steadily, trying to stay calm.

Felicity knows how to survive. She knows how to move past things that feel like they're going to overwhelm and swallow her whole life away. She knew from early on that she'd have to grow thick skin to survive this underground world she'd gotten entangled in. She knew the dangers of it, faced them all with clear eyes and a made up mind.

She knew the dangers of Oliver Queen, too. Remembers them still. (Never more clearly than right now, actually, and isn't that just the kind of ironic twist she's always scowled at.)

Around him are the harshest of lines she's ever drawn, the most definite 'don't's. And it's fine really, because she is a survivor in her own way and she's always known not to call things by a name they haven't earned.

Felicity moves deeper into her apartment with sluggish steps, doesn't even bother with the lights as she goes straight to her room, shedding her clothes as she goes and shimmying into the flannel pajamas that she'd thrown on the bed that morning.

It's really not that complicated, she tells herself as she squishes the toothpaste on the brush a little too aggressively and swears under her breath when too much of it gets out. Ugh, when will this day end?

He is Oliver Queen: her partner, her teammate and she cares about him, of course she does. He is stubborn and relentless and arrogant to the point of narcissism sometimes. He is a thousand other things that make her want to hurl things at his head every other day, on multiple occasions. And Felicity doesn't know if she's ever met, or even if she ever will meet, anyone with a heart like his. Anyone who loves more fiercely. He's so painfully flawed and she's watched him day after day choose to be better and she…

She does care about him obviously.

Obviously…

She cares about Digg too. Roy. Sara. They're a team, they all love and care for each other – they have been through hell together and it's normal to feel intensely about the people that got her through it. Oliver is one of those people. She knows for a fact he feels the same about her and Digg, too.

But that's it. That is it. It must be.

Felicity sighs and puts the hand holding the toothbrush down and starts at the bright white foam at the edges with betrayal it hasn't earned. She has no idea where else to direct it though.

She's fought so hard for it to be just that. To keep herself firmly planted in the real. In what is possible; and not even glance at what is not. Oliver Queen isn't one to be made to stay anywhere he doesn't want to, but he probably doesn't know that Felicity is just as good as him at surviving. Sometimes you have to have priorities in order to get through the day. You have to know which things matter and which don't (and which can't!). You have to; you can't have two full time jobs around people you feel emotionally compromised about. That simply can't be a thing. It would just get in the way. Which is why you push some things down in cavernous deep places where they can't echo very loudly. And keep them there, because if you were to look at them too closely… god it would be so exhausting.

And it's been okay like that for the longest time. It's been almost easy really. Their lives have been so complicated and fast-paced for so long that ignoring the details and focusing only on how to get through tomorrow and the next day, and the day after that, have been a rule to live by.

Not anymore, Felicity thinks furiously as she goes back to brushing her teeth, this time with a little more enthusiasm than usual, a frown furrowing her brow to worrying degrees.

Things have changed.

Now it's all right in her face. The very things that she's spent such stupid amount of energy denying are right there staring back at her and… and it was supposed to be unthinkable, damn it!

Until it wasn't.

She's worked so hard to make the two of them a perfectly ridiculous thought in her head (how much it had hurt when she dared think they weren't, and he proved her wrong spectacularly, had helped… a lot) But then he goes and shatters it with a small smile and knowing eyes and all the leaning… and there is a not-so-small, angry part of Felicity that wishes she could be angry about it, but the truth is she is just so… soconfused!

Oliver Queen is confusing. His face is stupid, and so are his blue eyes - and his shaking hands most of all!

Just what the hell is he doing anyway?

Felicity splashes cold water on her face over and over, trying to find some even ground. She looks up at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and finds wide, frantic eyes staring back. Her pulse is fluttering beneath her skin. And just like that, as she washes her face, the day crashes down around her, curving her shoulders in.

God, she's so tired. Just thinking about this is exhausting her. A car crash is nothing compared to this. Every danger she's faced feels like it pales in comparison to this.

Because Oliver, he is a difficult person to trust with tender things. He's a self-centered, self-motivated man - doesn't mean he is a bad man. Felicity knows better than most that he is the farthest thing from it. He's a good man who could be so much more if he just allowed himself to be… but Oliver has a hard time accounting for the feelings of others unless they affect him in some way. And he's so afraid. Felicity knows better than to think that could change without him wanting it to. Those five years are a huge grave and he insists on facing the dead things that crawl out of it alone. His guilt, that shame that burns beneath the surface, they're are a wall between him and anyone who wants to get close to him. That more than anything - more than their lives and the complications of emotional attachments - have kept Felicity at a distance. She has a lot of potholes and empty spaces inside her where insecurities echo for days, but she knows she deserves better than half-truths and secrets. She knows it. She's earned it.

And god knows it's not his fault, but it's still the truth: Oliver gets scared. He doesn't know how to lose – he spirals hard when he does, distorts the space around him.

He doesn't really think he can love without hurting; doesn't trust himself enough to try.

…He runs.

Felicity stops massaging her hydrating cream on the skin of her face, narrows her eyes at her reflection.

Coward!

She groans, throws a towel at the mirror and gets out, turning the light off.

It doesn't change anything though. She is a coward, isn't she? All those things, they are just excuses. The truth is far more ordinary: she's scared. She's freaking terrified, because this… the mere thought of this makes her knees turn a bit to jelly.

And there it is, her soul's truth: Oliver Queen could really smash her heart to bits, couldn't he?

The thought stops her steps just as she's about to get into bed. Instead she sits heavily on the edge and lets her head fall in her hands helplessly. She's never admitted it so plainly before…

He really could… he probably will too.

But then she thinks of how he can say the most unexpected things and make her laugh. Or the look he gives her sometimes, unflinching and still, bracing for rejection to hit like a tidal wave as he confesses how it gets a lot colder in Russia in the winter but the tundra really is a beautiful sight; or the time it usually takes for most people to reach their pain thresholds before they pass out. Felicity thinks of the slow way he's been trying to reach for her, giving up secrets like gifts, all trepidation and vulnerability, and she feels herself deflate.

It's too late at night for these kind of decisions, she tells herself as she reaches over to turn off the bedside lamp, plunging her room in darkness. She takes off her glasses and is just about to crawl beneath the covers when she remembers she hasn't grabbed the water from the kitchen. She very seriously considers leaving it - her limbs feeling almost numb with exhaustion, her soft bed swallowing her, but she knows better. She will wake up, like always does, thirsty in the middle of the night and if she has to walk all the way to her kitchen, she won't fall asleep again.

With a groan, Felicity rolls out of bed and drags her feet to the kitchen. The low-key headache she'd had all day is starting to act up and it makes her wince.

And maybe that is why she doesn't see it sooner.

Or maybe because she didn't take her glasses or turn on the light at all – why didn't she do that? But then again, Felicity knows her apartment like the back of her hand and doesn't need light to navigate it.

But not tonight will prove to be different, in about 3.5 seconds.

It's just a glance really, fleeting in the dark. For a fraction of a moment she thinks it's her mind playing tricks on her, but it still chills her blood. She's been working against people that kill in the dark too long to give shadows the benefit of the doubt. Her heart jumps in her throat, beating madly, jolting her body into hyper-awareness so violently she shakes. Bitterness floods her mouth.

The knives on the counter are closer than the small automatic piece taped beneath the living room coffee-table, or the taser in her bag. The problem is that Felicity doesn't know how to use a knife very efficiently. But there's no time to reach the gun either.

She gives up on nonchalance and lunges for the counter. Her fingertips brush it just when she feels the steel hold of a hand fisting her ponytail, yanking her back. Tears sting her eyes, her yelp strangled in her throat as her body shifts trajectory almost without Felicity feeling it. It's the sheer weightlessness of falling she feels, before the side of her head explodes in pain and then goes numb.

What happens is that her head is slammed against the adjoined wall of her kitchen and the whiplash of the hit is so strong that her head bounces off it, but Felicity barely feels that one. She only feels her heart thundering and the mass of her attacker in looming as she does what Sara once told her and goes for the face. She scratches her nails down deep, blindly. Feels the wetness of thick blood beneath her nails and the hold of her attacker loosening. Kicks her knee up, shoves her elbows down aiming for his sides, trying to break free of it completely.

She does.

She runs. Or tries to. Dives for the coffee-table.

She is not giving in without a fight.

She's almost there when she hears the steps from her left. Maybe it's training that has her so aware, or maybe just adrenaline, but she can almost feel the hit coming it connects. Unfortunately, she isn't fast enough to avoid it.

A fist to the stomach has her doubling over for breath. Her body changes angle and for the second time that night she's flying, heart soaring in her throat before she crashes hard. The sting of her back, the way breath leaves her in a rush, it all registers far more sharply that the small coffee table crashing beneath her. When she feels her face being turned up, Felicity doesn't even feel it. She can't breathe.

But then she looks to the face of her attacker, and she is robbed of breath for an entirely different reason.

That's when the merciless stab on her side comes. Felicity can barely grunt at the sharp sting of it.

One time. Again.

She doesn't feel the third stab. Just her breath wheezing out, barely reaching her lungs, her senses fading. And darkness of a different kind closing in.

[3] This here refers to the feeling of dizziness, obviously, not the drug in Arrow!verse

[4] Gotta give credit for this one as soon as i find the link cause its not my expression

[5] Skyfall

[6] After Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992), often deemed "The Queen of Code"

[7] Lord of War

[8] ;)

[10] Girl with the dragon tattoo

[11] Girl with the dragon tattoo.

[14] Adaptation of that line, from 'The Secret Origins of Felicity Smoak'

[15] Inspired by 'yes & no / natalie wee' (the poem at the beginning of the prologue) (certain phrases were taken verbatim out of it)

[16] 'Deathless'