Felicity needs a break from the pressures of Starling City. Set shortly after Oliver & Felicity's disastrous first date in the Season 3 premiere. This is mostly Felicity, so I'm hoping I got her character right! Feedback is always appreciated!

She was on a break. A break from work, a break from drama, a break from crime, whatever. Felicity Smoak was not taking any calls. She had made the team promise not to take any undo risks, and Roy was getting a tiny bit better at the basic Arrow Cave tasks. He could monitor police scans, track the team's GPS signals, and man the comms. They would be fine for a couple of days. Ray at her "real job" could deal with the fact that she was taking time off and out of Starling City.

She tossed her bags down beside the giant bed, and dropped to sit on the mattress. The luxury hotel she was staying in was just over an hour outside of town, and she couldn't wait to get to her spa treatment in the morning. Naturally, she'd also packed a bag full of new tech to play with. Massages and new toys- she couldn't think of a better way to spend her rare time.

Being around Oliver was nearly a constant strain now. Before the night that everything blew up figuratively and literally, he had always just humored her when her brain inevitably failed to filter her thoughts, but now it was different. There seemed to be so much weight behind every comment and behind every lingering glance. She knew it couldn't go anywhere, he had made that clear, so she just needed a bit of distance.

Glancing around her room, Felicity took in the huge expanse of the bed, the giant windows offering a view of the night sky, and the warm tones that covered all the walls and drapery. A girl could get used to this.

The last few times she had gotten made up and gone out had all been for Oliver. There was their disastrous attempt at a date, and before that she had been attending his parties or going under cover. Felicity was determined that, just for tonight, she was going to get dressed up and go down to the hotel's restaurant. For once, she would pick out something to wear and do her hair, and not wonder whether or not Oliver Queen would like it.

She opened up her bag and pulled out a small black dress that she had been dying for an excuse to wear. It was probably shorter than appropriate, but there was no one to care. She hung up the dress in the closet before moving into the over-sized bathroom of the suite. She turned the water on hot, and started pulling off her jacket. Tonight was all about her.

…

A while later, Felicity walked into the bar on the first floor of the hotel. The dim light set a relaxed tone, and Felicity was thrilled to have an evening where she didn't have anyone to keep secrets from and didn't have to guard everything she said. The part of her that was constantly running variables and risk factors was tired, and it was happy to have the night off.

The light glistened off her hair, and she was completely oblivious to the fact that she drew the eyes of half the bar when she passed through. Her black dress had spaghetti straps that ran over her shoulders and connected behind her neck. The two straps met together there and ran down in a twist to meet the back of the dress. She wasn't wearing any jewelry except for a small silver bracelet, and her hair flowed in soft waves over her shoulders. She'd put her contacts in, and she was pretty sure that most of Starling City wouldn't even recognize her tonight.

When she took a seat at the bar, she was determined to have an easy night. Maybe a little light flirtation, or maybe she would make friends with the bartender. Weren't bartenders all supposed to be friendly? The only bartenders she knew were the ones at Verdant, and she considered most of them to be friends if not family, so that idea worked for her.

Throughout the night several different men sat down next to her, but none had lasted very long. A few made it through buying her a drink, but most left within a few minutes of trying to keep up with her. It was her night, after all, and if all she wanted to talk about the benefits of particle acceleration and the personal costs of the Central City explosion, then that's what she'd talk about. It wasn't her fault these people couldn't come up with reasonable responses. She'd talk, they'd listen, and a few would even pretend to know what she was talking about.

Eventually Felicity had had her fill of babbling to people who were completely lost, and she figured she'd venture back up to her room, curl up in her amazing bed, and find some people online to chat with who could actually have coherent responses.

She was on the elevator when she noticed that her bracelet was missing. She gasped, and grabbed her wrist. It was her grandmother's bracelet, and she hardly ever wore it. It was somewhat valuable; it did have a few very small inlaid diamonds, but its sentimental valuable was priceless. She immediately stopped the ascent of the elevator and headed back to the bar. She couldn't believe that the clasp would have broken- it wasn't very delicate and it had survived much more hazardous evenings in its existence than sitting still at a bar.

When she made it back downstairs, Felicity rushed back to where she'd been sitting. Her gaze raked the floor near her seat, and she didn't see any sign of her bracelet.

"Excuse me," she called out to Jonathan, the bartender whom she'd entertained all evening by running off all the men who approached her.

"Felicity, back so soon?" He walked over to her and leaned against the bar.

"Did you see my bracelet anywhere? I wore it down here, and now it's gone." Her anxiety must have been clear, because he stood up straight and was serious when he answered. She couldn't help but rub her wrist in the place where the bracelet should have sat.

"No, I didn't see it, and no one has turned in any jewelry." He sent her a concerned look. "Are you positive you wore it down here?"

"Yes, I'm sure," she murmured, already distracted with deciding on her next move. Felicity hurried away and headed back onto the elevator. If she hacked into the security footage from the hotel she could see exactly when and where she'd lost the bracelet.

As she entered her hotel suite, she toed off her heels and grabbed her bag of tech. She pulled out her laptop, and it was mere seconds before she was connected to the wifi and breaking through to the hotel's server. Perched on the bed, she was leaning over the laptop. Her hair kept sliding down into her face, and she absently wondered where she'd left one of her hair ties.

"Almost… there!" She found the camera pointed at the bar, and started backing it up. Once she spotted herself, she could tell immediately that she wasn't wearing her bracelet when she got up to leave the bar at the end of the evening. Within another few moments, she came to a screen where she could see the bracelet on her wrist. Luckily she'd been holding her drink in her hand, and it left a clear line of sight.

She slowed down the frame, and that's when she saw exactly what had happened.

"Oh my god, that jerk!" The man she was talking to had reached out towards her, and in a split second her bracelet wasn't on her wrist anymore. "That thief has no idea who he's messing with." Her eyes squinted as she got ready to take this guy on. She had facial recognition software saved on her hard drive thanks to her night time activities, and she ran him through the database.

He popped up within seconds. "Adam Sloan." It wasn't very nice of him to go stealing a girl's valuables. The problem was that Sloan wasn't just a one time pick pocket or petty thief. Apparently he was wanted in several states and had a history of violence. He was considered to be dangerous.

As tempting as it was just to go knock on his door and threaten to destroy him, she knew it would be better to get more back up involved. Unfortunately, she wasn't sure that calling the police wouldn't cause them to ask a bunch of questions about how she obtained her information. She sighed, and admitted to herself that her vacation was about to be severely interrupted.

She flipped open her cell and called Diggle's number. Maybe she could avoid any real drama. If he would come help her get her bracelet back, they could just leave Sloan packaged up for the local police to find on their own.

He answered on the second ring, knowing she was supposed to be out of commission for the night. "What's wrong?"

"You know, I could just be calling to chat." She answered him. When silence was the only response, she could practically feel his eyebrow lifting. Felicity filled him in on the basics, then asked if there was any way that he could come help her out.

"Felicity, I hate to tell you this, but Lyla had an ARGUS emergency and headed out of town. There's nobody else to take of Sara, so I have to stay. Oliver's on duty tonight, you know he'll come running." Now it was her turn for a meaningful pause. "Felicity, whatever you do, you swear to me right now that you aren't going to go after that guy on your own." When she maintained her silence, he growled into the phone "Felicity!"

"You know," she answered him, "with a little more work your growl could take on Oliver's."

"Not the answer I'm waiting on," Diggle replied.

"Fine," she sighed into the phone, "I promise not to go after him alone."

"Good." He sounded relieved. "Deal with whatever you're avoiding and just call Oliver." With that parting note, he hung up the phone.

Felicity stared at her cell and contemplated calling Roy. He was perfectly capable of helping her out. He wouldn't have anything keeping him in Starling, and he could be there within a couple of hours. Even as she thought about it, she knew she wouldn't do it. Oliver would kill Roy if he came to help her out without telling him, and if Oliver knew about it there's no way he would stay in Starling. As tempted as she was, she didn't want to torture Roy by making him deal with their issues.

She took a deep breath and dialed. Oliver answered before the first ring was done.

"What wrong?" He already sounded like he was wearing his angry face.

"Seriously, I'm not loving that as my standard greeting."

"Felicity, you made us swear not to bother you unless an actual apocalypse was occurring. You aren't calling to check on the weather, so what's wrong?"

She proceeded to fill him in, her voice catching as she described her bracelet. Telling him about it seemed to make the loss real, unlike anything else that she'd done so far.

"So, is there a chance you can come out here and help me get it back?"

"I'll be at your room in about thirty minutes."

"Thirty minutes? How is that even possible? Have you added flying to your list of talents?"

"I started heading that way as soon as you called Diggle. He texted you were calling him…" His voice trailed away. "And I drive fast."

"Right," she said slowly. "Okay. Room 528. I'll see you when you get here."

Felicity spent the time gathering information about Adam Sloan, wanting the police to have everything that they needed to make a clean arrest. She planned to leave it all on the jump drive she'd attach to him before she and Oliver left him as a tidy present for the police.

She almost didn't hear the knock at the door. She slid off of the bed, not noticing that the slide dragged the hem of her dress up even higher, and bounded barefoot across the carpet to let Oliver in. She threw open the door, then turned and headed back for her laptop.

"Okay, it took some searching because of course he's staying here under a false name, but I tracked him to room 432. That's only one floor down. We have a few choices, the most obvious being you bursting in, going all arrow-y on him, and just making him give back my bracelet. We could also sneak in; you're stealth marks are high." She snatched her laptop off the bed, and turned back to face Oliver while she checked the security cameras on her computer. "The stealth mode is probably better- no use advertising the Arrow stopped through town tonight." At this point she finally realized that Oliver wasn't answering her and looked up at him.

He was staring at her with his eyes just a bit wide, and he certainly didn't appear to be weighing the options of her plan. She had no idea how she looked to him, standing there in that gorgeous and way too short dress, with her hair flowing like spun gold, and a huge, inviting bed right behind her.

"Were you wearing that tonight?" He nearly growled at her. She did a double take at both his comment and his tone.

"No, Oliver," she replied sarcastically, "I put it on to go to bed." His eyes got even wider as she mentioned going to bed, and she began to turn red. "We are not having this conversation. Nope, not happening. Moving on." He pulled off his sweatshirt and tossed it to her, and she decided the most prudent move would just be to go along with him. She pulled it over her head, pushing her arms through the sleeves. It fell nearly to her knees, covering her entirely. She just shook her head and moved on.

In the end, they went with the stealth plan. Felicity rigged it up so that she could call and order room service to his suite, and the two of them stalked the room until the staff arrived. Even as Sloan opened the door, Felicity stepped out and distracted the waiter. Oliver slipped in behind Sloan, elbowed him in the face (possibly a bit harder than necessary), shoved him back from the doorway, and smoothly proceeded to take the room service. He even gave the waiter a nice tip.

While their thief was out, Felicity rummaged through his things. She had no trouble finding her bracelet, along with a stash of jewelry no doubt swiped from other victims. Oliver left the man handcuffed to his suitcase filled with ill-gotten gains, and Felicity helpfully placed the chain of her flash drive around his neck.

The two of them left, and the event was over. The two of them walked back into her suite, and you would have thought they had just gone for an evening stroll.

As they entered the room, Oliver reached over and took the bracelet from her. Instinctively, she ran her fingers around her wrist. He reached out and took her wrist in his hand, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the spot she'd been touching since the bracelet went missing. Heat rushed through her at the contact. He then took the bracelet and placed it around her wrist. Despite his hands being so much larger than hers, of course his fingers easily navigated the tiny clasp of the bracelet. He kept his hand in place on the clasp for a moment after he was finished, and the tension built in the room.

Suddenly, she jerked her hand away from his. "Okay," she said. "I'll just erase the footage of us coming and going from his hallway." She moved to her laptop, still sitting on the bed, and tapped out commands into her keyboard.

"Do you want to stay here?" Oliver looked at her, hesitant to demand that she pack up and go with him, but clearly not wanting to leave her behind.

She sighed, knowing that her vigilante was not leaving for Starling City unless Felicity was right there with him. So much for her night of relaxation.

"Let me get changed, and then we'll go." Her voice was disappointed and resigned, and she knew it. She grabbed her bag and slipped into the bathroom. She pulled off his sweatshirt and her dress, and she replaced it with yoga pants and a t-shirt. She found a band and pulled her hair back into her usual ponytail. If she wasn't going to be relaxing in the lap of luxury, she was at least going to be comfortable.

When Felicity came back out, the room was empty. She looked around and noticed a note written on hotel stationary sitting on top of her laptop. "I trust you to call me if you need anything. Stay. I'll see you back in the city." Oliver had actually left. She seriously couldn't believe it. Sinking down onto the bed, she let her barrier drop, and the relief that she felt was overwhelming. She had been willing to deal with her issues and head home, knowing that her being here was adding to Oliver's worries, but she was desperate for this one weekend away from Starling City. She needed this break so that the pressures of guiding Team Arrow didn't crush her. Realizing that she wasn't going to lose this break somehow made it easier to breathe.

Ready to crash, she cleared off the bed and crawled under the covers. Surprisingly, sleep wasn't instantaneous. After a few minutes, she caved in to her urge and reached out for Oliver's sweatshirt that she'd taken off earlier. She pulled it over her head, and grabbed her cell. "Thank you," was the message she typed out. Feeling like he was surrounding her, and knowing she could call him any time and he'd be there in a heartbeat, she was able to drift off.

…

In the room next door, Oliver lay on the bed. He knew more than anyone how much Felicity needed a break. He wouldn't drag her back to the city just yet, but there was still no way he could just leave her here. The city had Roy, and for a couple of nights it would just have to do. He promised himself he wouldn't check in on her unless she asked, that he would just stay close enough to be there if she needed him. His phone vibrated, and he snatched it up to see her message. "Thank you." He released a breath, and closed his eyes. Knowing she was safe on the other side of the wall, he might even be able to sleep tonight.