A/N: Thanks for being patient! This was a busy week for my beta (and for me too!). We're still following along rather closely with canon here as these two try to straddle the line.

Big thanks to lunarsilverwolfstar for being such a fantastic beta reader!

The holidays were drawing near, which meant all of her co-workers were busy with holiday parties and shopping and all of that. Felicity didn't celebrate Christmas, but it didn't make a difference anyhow because who would she celebrate with? She could go to Vegas and visit her mother but... no. She'd done that last year and had ended up sitting alone in her mom's apartment while she went out on dates and worked. With no wi-fi! She shuddered in remembrance.

It was dark in her little corner of IT. She was looking up some of the names on the list in that mysterious book, doing her own sniffing around and testing some features on the new tablet her department head had given her to use in place of her trusty laptop. Felicity was thrilled, glad that QC was finally joining the new millennium and embracing table technology. She was so engrossed with what she was doing that she didn't realize she had a visitor until that person spoke.

"Hey?"

She jumped, looking up to see Oliver standing before her desk, amused expression firmly in place. His smile (God, he was gorgeous) ruffled her nerves and she couldn't help snapping at him. "Don't you knock?"

If anything, his grin only grew wider. "Felicity. This is the IT department. It's not the ladies room."

Okay, he had a point. She relaxed a little and returned his smile, laughing a little at her own embarrassment. "Right," she said, shutting down the tablet for now and setting it aside. "What can I do for you?" Felicity looked up at him expectantly, almost excited to see what his next story to her might be.

"My buddy Steve is really into archery. Apparently, it's all the rage now," he told her, trying his hardest to look baffled by the phenomenon. Interesting, she thought. This played into her suspicions pretty smoothly, she thought. Wasn't he worried about tipping her off? She decided to play with him a little.

"Yeah, I don't know why," she replied dismissively. "Looks utterly ridiculous to me." She pressed her lips together as he hummed in agreement, but she very nearly cracked when she saw purposefully bland look on his face. He stared at her for a moment, and she was about to ask if she had something in her teeth when he looked down at the tub he held in his hands.

"Anyway, it's Steve's birthday next weekend and I wanted to buy him some arrows." Oliver took the lid off the end of the tube and pulled out a long, black arrow. "The thing is, he gets these special, custom-made arrows and I have no idea where he gets them."

Felicity swallowed, staring at the arrow he held out towards her. An arrow that potentially could have been used to kill someone. She'd heard about Adam Hunt in the papers, how he'd been killed by an archer. There was some disagreement if it was the vigilante or someone else. Another coincidence? Doubtful.

"I was hoping you could find out where this came from," Oliver continued, holding the arrow closer to her and for a moment, she was afraid to touch it. He looked serious now, hardly like someone who was birthday shopping for his buddy. She lifted a hand to take it from him and he pulled back slightly. "Careful."

"Yeah," she said and this time he placed the arrow in her outstretched hand before taking a seat before her desk. The arrow was lighter than the dark sheen of the shaft would have had her think. She studied it, from the sharpened arrowhead to the feathers at the other end. It was long, lethal, and obviously finely crafted. She was able to make out a patent number near the base.

"The shaft's composite is patented," she told him, opening up her browser. Felicity typed the number in and the information came up right away. "And that patent is registered a company called Sagittarius." She smiled smugly at him, handing him back the arrow, glad to feel she had a bit of an upper hand with him. "That's Latin, for The Archer."

"Really," he breathed, taking the arrow from her and carefully storing it back in the tube he'd brought with him. He didn't sound the least bit surprised by that nugget of information, she noted. Interesting. "Could you find out where and when this was purchased?"

Her smile grew bigger. This was what she did best, and damn her, she wanted to impress him. She returned to her computer and ran a search. "According to Sagittarius company records, that particular arrow was part of a bundle shipment. Two hundred units." That's a lot of arrows. She scribbled down the address that came up. "Sent to this address." She tore the paper off her notepad and handed it to him.

Oliver's smile returned in full force as he took the paper from her. "Felicity. You're remarkable," he told her. Pleasure coursed through her at his praise, even though she knew there was no intent behind it. Still, it felt good to hear it.

"Thank you for remarking on it."

Still smiling, Oliver got to his feet and grabbed the tube containing the arrow. He moved towards the door, not even going to say goodbye before he turned back and added, almost as an afterthought, "And Merry Christmas."

Ever since she'd been a little she'd had to correct people and apparently this afternoon was no different. "I'm Jewish," she blurted.

Oliver paused and turned back. He met her eye. "Happy Hanukkah." His voice was low, soft, sincere. She watched him leave, feeling a pang in her chest. The fact that he still seemed so unaffected was really getting to her. Maybe that night had only meant something more to her and she was being the foolish one?

God, would there ever be a time where she saw him or spoke to him where she didn't think about their night together? Knowing their relationship was impossible didn't seem to forestall any fantasies her mind concocted. And boy, over the last month or two, her mind had been busy. Every time she'd start to think that maybe she'd built up their one night stand somehow and that it hadn't been as earth shattering as she remembered, she'd see Oliver again and be reminded. Oh yes, he was that attractive. And oh yes, she still had the hots for him.

Dammit.

—

Things took a turn after Felicity's last meeting with Oliver. Shortly after, he'd had some sort of accident and ended up in the hospital. His injuries had been severe enough to make the local news and Felicity had called Walter to find out if he was okay, not being able to bear not knowing the facts a moment longer.

She was relieved when Walter assured her that while he was hurt fairly bad and would have a recovery ahead of him, Oliver was going to be fine. That relief didn't last long because it wasn't terribly long after she spoke to him that Walter disappeared. It wasn't another business trip and he wasn't at home with the flu; he was just gone. Considering the book with the names inside it and what Felicity was starting to suspect it was tied to, she was worried for her employer. Walter was a nice guy. He'd always been nice to her, at least. There'd been disappearances and all kinds of sketchy things going on around Queen Consolidated lately. The thought that her and Walter's curiosity might have resulted in something bad happening to him ate her up.

But she couldn't very well poke around, at least not obviously. Felicity felt exposed enough as it was and while she didn't like to think of herself as a coward, she didn't want to be the next employee to go missing. Then, weeks passed and there was no sign of Walter, no answers as to his whereabouts. Felicity began to wonder if maybe she shouldn't go to someone with her concerns, to see about getting some help. Didn't she owe that to Walter for the kindness he'd shown her? But who could she go to?

It was almost prophetic, then, when Oliver paid another visit to her cubicle. She was just digging into some chow mein for lunch at her desk when he came strolling in, all charming smiles and swagger. Flustered in his presence once more, she set her food aside and straightened her desk while she babbled a hello.

"And here I was beginning to think my days of being Oliver Queen's personal computer geek were coming to end." She beamed a smile at him.

"Is that your way of saying you missed me?" he asked, a playful edge to his voice.

Yes. "No. But if it works for you, go with it."

He huffed a laugh and she thrilled to see his smile. Felicity got the feeling he didn't smile very often which was a shame. It was such a gorgeous smile. On the other hand, she was a bit miffed to see him so cool and calm. He didn't seem affected by her and she envied his ability to so easily put their one night stand behind him. She couldn't look at him without picturing how he'd looked over her, his hips pounding into hers.

"So, a friend of mine is running a scavenger hunt," he began. She looked sharply at him, both surprised and unsurprised that he was trying yet another lame story on her. Scavenger hunt? Did people still do those? She doubted it. "And there's a case of Lafite Rothschild 1982 waiting at the end."

Shit. Red wine. Her great weakness. "Oh." She nearly moaned the syllable. How did he know? That was some serious wine, expensive as hell. A whole case of it? "I love red wine."

Oliver looked very interested in her reaction and his smile was downright predatory. Damn the man, he knew what he was doing. "But in order to find it, I first need to get through this." He held out a small black stick to her.

She accepted it, curious. "Security fob." As she uncapped the end, exposing the USB port, Oliver came around the desk to stand next to her. She tried not to notice his nearness too much. Felicity plugged the device into her computer and instantly, a window opened. It was a login screen. She tried a few keystrokes and the computer beeped at her. "It's pin protected," she told him. "The challenge response goes back to a company called Blackhawk Squad Protection Group."

Oliver was watching over her shoulder. "Yeah, my friend had his bodyguards set it up for him. Personally, I think it's cheating... but, whatever."

Felicity darted a glance at him and noticed his jaw was set. Yeah, he was definitely lying. Again. She tapped a few keys and a terminal window scrolled a bunch of data.

"This is a military grade cryptographic security protocol. Your friend really went to all this trouble?" She didn't bother to keep the skepticism out of her voice and she turned her head, smiling at him over her shoulder.

He didn't even look a little uncomfortable, to his credit. "The idle rich are hard to entertain."

Points to him, that's a good cover.

"Listen," he said. "You get through it, and one of those bottles of wine is yours." He was giving her his most charming smile and, god help her, it was working. Heat blossomed low in her belly. He tapped her shoulder with his finger as he straightened and moved towards the door. She looked down at where he'd touched her, oh so briefly, and then back up again, smiling a little in spite of herself.

After he left, she kept working at the encryption. Partly because he'd asked her and there was an amazing bottle of wine for her in the balance, and partly because this was yet another mystery that she had to unravel. Too late, she realized she should have maybe said something to Oliver about Walter's disappearance. Then again, if he was sticking to his playboy image, he probably wouldn't be able to help her out there.

Of course, that's assuming he's not wrapped up with the vigilante like she suspects.

It took the rest of her day and all her attention, but she finally broke through the encryption. She called Oliver on his cell phone to let him know she had it.

"What did you get?" he asked as soon as he answered. Hellos were so five years ago.

"I think your friend's bodyguard gave him the wrong security fob," she replied, playing along.

"Why's that?"

"Well, once I got past Blackhawk's authentication system, there wasn't anything about a scavenger hunt," she answered. Surprise, surprise. "Just a directory and... well, I think you stumbled onto or got me to stumble onto something pretty illegal."

Felicity did her best to keep her fear out of her voice. She wasn't scared, not really. But if he was going to have her breaking the law, the least he could do was stop lying to her. And stop dominating her dirty dreams at night.

"Define illegal," he said, his voice now hard and clipped.

"Oh, you know," she replied, going for easy and breezy, "robbing an armored car with grenade launchers and tear gas."

"Wha-what?" He sounded stunned. That surprised her; she'd expected he'd at least suspected what she'd find, but his reaction told her otherwise.

"Someone at Blackhawk was using their system to store detailed routes and schedules for each of the city's seven major armored car carriers. Including the three that have already been hit. Mr. Queen," she went on, purposefully getting formal with his name. "I think we should provide this information to the police. With it, they should be able to predict the next heist."

"Hold on," Oliver cut in and he sounded edgy. "Felicity... I don't want to get you in trouble with my friend. So, do me a favor. Forward that directory onto me and I'll get it to the police personally. Thank you."

The line went dead. No goodbyes either. Then, with more sinking dread, she realized no mention had been made of the wine. Felicity sighed, holding the phone away from her ear and looking at it ruefully. "So, no wine then." Typical. She should have known that elusive bottle of Bordeaux was too good to be true. Well. Maybe she'd think twice before helping Mr. Queen out again.

Oh, who was she kidding? That man had her wrapped around his finger and he knew it.

To Felicity's surprise, she heard from Oliver again rather soon. This time, she had no prior warning; he just appeared one day while she was up on the eighteenth floor. She'd been taking care of an executive's computer that had randomly stopped accepting application updates. A quick fix for her, to be sure. She was playing a little catch-up with a co-worker before heading to the elevators to get back to her IT department "cave" when Oliver called her name. She turned to see him with his bodyguard in tow.

He looked different than he had the last couple of times she'd seen him. Actually, the way he walked towards her reminded her a bit of how he'd acted in the club that one night; loose and a bit wobbly. Was he drunk?

"You look like something the cat dragged in," she remarked honestly, looking him up and down. Oliver sighed. "Not that there are cats in this building. Well, once a cat did get in, but a guard tased it. Smelled like fur and static in here for like a week."

He looked over her shoulder, his eyes blinking slowly, almost rolling back in his head, and she thought for a moment that maybe he was going to get sick. He cleared his throat, blinking again.

"Would you mind stepping away from the window for a moment? I have a little bit of a hangover."

Felicity pursed her lips. Ah, that explained it. Probably another late night at the club. A very small and selfish part of her wondered if he'd gone home with some girl, like he'd done with her. She moved around so that she faced the window instead of him and he seemed to relax. John Diggle stood silently by Oliver's side, his eyes carefully on her.

"Sounds like you need a bloody mary and a pretzel," she suggested. "Not the IT department."

"Actually, my buddy Kevin is starting an energy drink company," Oliver explained, reaching inside his jacket to pull something out. "He says it's fantastic for curing hangovers but I am very particular about what it is I put in my body."

"I've noticed," she murmured, before she could catch herself. Shit. Don't let him know you've been lusting after him all this time! "I said, not noticed. Right?"

Surprisingly, Oliver looked as though he wanted to laugh. That gorgeous smile of his spread across his face again, but he tamped it down as he looked down at what he'd brought out of his pocket. It was a double syringe. What?

"I'm trying to find his secret recipe. Could you please do a spectro-analysis of the sample and find out exactly where in the city it's made?" he asked, handing the syringe to her.

Alarms were going off in her head. Spectro-analysis? Since when did a philandering playboy like Oliver Queen even know what one of those was? Then, of course, there was the obvious question. She probably shouldn't even ask, but curiosity was getting the better of her. "If it's an energy drink," Felicity began, speaking carefully, "why is it in a syringe?"

Oliver looked up and to the left before replying. "I ran out of sports bottles."

Mr. Diggle next to him just stared at him for a moment before walking away towards the elevators. Even he knew a terrible lie when he heard it. Felicity bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing out loud.

Oliver simply kept looking at her and he smiled again. Dammit, that was her weakness. "Okay," she mouthed, moving away from him to go begin the analysis.

Did he really think she was that stupid? Clearly not or he wouldn't keep coming to her for help. Or was there another reason that he kept finding reasons to visit her?

Felicity worked on the analysis, calling Oliver when she had the results. She tried not to look too hard into it when the results were not, in fact, that of an energy drink. Of course, she wasn't the least bit surprised. She hadn't really expected it to be.

And yet.

This man lied to her almost every time he saw her. That should have put her back up, been a good signal for her to run far and fast from him. Instead, she found herself thinking of the times he hadn't lied. At the club, and later at her townhouse. That hadn't been a lie. Whatever her romantic imaginings of that night were, she wasn't that deluded.

Plus, he'd come to her. The fact that he'd come with lies wasn't as important as the fact that he'd trusted her to help him at all. Trust. Felicity thought of Walter, who was still missing, and how she still had that book with the names in it. Oliver had come to her, needing her help, on more than one occasion. Why couldn't the road go both ways? She should be able to go to him for help, right?

It took her until the next day to work up the nerve to call him. She'd talked herself out of it a dozen times before she dialed his cell phone and asked if he could meet her. She didn't want to meet at QC. There was no telling who might be listening (maybe that was why Oliver had given her lies instead of the truth?). She didn't want to go to his home either. She'd seen photos of the Queen mansion in magazines and didn't think she could bear to meet him there either. She was going to be nervous enough as it was without having some enormous, intimidating castle to contend with.

In the end, Oliver suggested they meet at Big Belly Burger in the Glades, not far from his father's old steel factory where Oliver was currently renovating the space to become a nightclub. The burger joint was far more her speed.

Now, she just had to work up the nerve to share with him what she knew.