It's strange, and many of his peers wouldn't agree on it probably, but when Four steps away from the training room, Oliver's nervousness doubles, as if their one safety-net is being pulled from under them. She doesn't do anything to really set herself apart from Isabel but it's not about words or even actions. The undercurrent between them is almost opposite. They're both dangerous and intimidating, they both look like violence wrapped in skin, but where one of them is ruthless without rules, the other is honorable. And it's like being presented with two different ways to be Dauntless.

The more time they spend in the training rooms, the more the difference starts being noticeable, until it becomes a piecing scream.

When Isabel offers to 'give Tiana a hand a hand' after she conceded on her fight with Helena, Oliver's spine straightens like a jolt of electricity jams through it. He feels like yelling at Tiana not to touch Isabel ever, as if she were a poisonous plant or something. It feels like the moment Tiana will touch Isabel, she's going to lose a hand or something.

As it happens, there's no loss of limb involved: Tiana ends up dangling off the Chasm instead.

Oliver isn't sure which one is worse.

o

Isabel's walk is distinctive – her steps are heavy because she wants to be noticed. Felicity knows other versions of Isabel's walk as well: when she's so quiet that she doesn't even disturb the shadows. But here she wants to be looked at when she enters a room.

"Are they ready for a real fight?"

Felicity scoffs. "Not even close."

Isabel shakes her arms at her sides, rolls her shoulders. Her voice resounds around the brick walls. "John Diggle - in the ring."

Felicity clenches her jaw tight as John steps in the ring and starts jumping up and down in place, loosening his muscles, eager to prove himself. He shouldn't be. Laws of predictability and years of living around Isabel tells Felicity that next to the biggest fighter in this class, their so called leader is going to put the smallest one, because that is how Isabel's brain operates.

"Lance." Isabel juts her chin towards the ring in front of her. "Time to fight."

Sara's eyes are determined as she steps in the ring, her bright hair pulled in a tight ponytail. The quiet anticipation in John's eyes dims immediately as he takes her in from head to foot. Felicity knows the reason behind his hesitation – it's probably one of the reasons why this fight is going to be such a delight for Isabel. Physically speaking, technique and experience aside, John is the strongest fighter of this initiation class… but he's kind. It's all over his face and sometimes when Felicity catches Isabel looking at him, she just wants to throw a wet blanket around his shoulders and protect him from the flames that he doesn't even notice are crawling about him.

"How long do we fight for?" John asks and even though his face is well schooled, his hesitation is in his voice and in the way he hasn't even fallen into his stance yet.

"Till one of you can't continue." Isabel responds, as if it's obvious.

Felicity steps forward, head to head with Isabel though the other woman is almost a head taller.

"Or till one of you concedes."

Isabel doesn't look away from John and Sara, as if Felicity isn't there at all.

"That was the old rules. According to the new rules, no one concedes."

Felicity turns her head barely, her voice even, eyes focusing somewhere on Isabel's chin. "You really wanna lose them on their first fight?"

"The brave never surrender." Isabel says, and to Felicity, it sounds like she's parroting something she doesn't understand fully.

"The brave acknowledge the strength of the peers by their side." Felicity reiterates evenly.

This standstill feels old and worn, but it's never gotten easier being in it. The divide between them couldn't be wider if they were standing at different sides of the Chasm and really, this is why Felicity has been refusing a leadership position two years in a row. She knows what she believes in, but there is no place for it in this new Dauntless that is shaping up.

"As I said, a true Dauntless never gives up." Isabel closes the argument with that. And it should be easy to leave it alone. It would besmart and Felicity is fucking smart. She is the smartest person in any given room most of the time, even though there aren't that many that know that - which is the way she wants it. She should be smarter than this, but sometimes… well, sometimes she is a lot angrier than she is smart.

"Lucky for you, those weren't the rules when we fought." Felicity says, voice so slow that only Isabel is sure to hear it.

Isabel's face hardens, her eyes go cold as she stares at the initiates.

"You'll be scored on this, so fight hard."

For a few moments all John and Sara do is walk around the ring, taking the measure of each other. Isabel huffs.

"I don't have all day." She snaps.

Sara lunges. John defends himself pretty well against her but that's all he does and once Sara snaps at him to fight back, he has to do just that. In a way… in many ways, actually, Felicity understands Sara perfectly. Not being taken seriously as an opponent is an insult that is almost as heavy as a punch to the face for someone who wants to be a part of dauntless. So John obliges and they actually fight. Sara does fight hard. She fights smart. But no matter what, she simply has too little experience to go against someone more than twice her size and win. John gets one good punch in and she's down.

She tries to scramble back up, stubborn as a mule, and John looks to Isabel first and then to Felicity, looking like he's waiting for them to call the fight off, but Felicity doesn't move, doesn't blink. A few feet away from her, Isabel checks her watch.

John huffs an angry breath.

"This is ridiculous! What is the point of beating her up? We're in the same faction!"

Sara grits her teeth and almost growls at him. She smiles and her teeth are bloody, her eyes alight like a torch has been turned on inside her skull.

Felicity knows that look. She's lived that rage. It's why she knows it won't take Sara very far, no matter how bright it burs.

"Oh you think it's that pointless do you? Fuck you!" Sara growls and then launches herself bodily against him, trying to do the most damage she can before he knocks her out.

Felicity lets go a slow breath, trying to control her reactions. She looks at John pushing Sara away and nicking at her like the perverted version of a sculptor chirping at a marble block and she feels the beginning of violence heating up her insides. She doesn't look away from the fight and the longer it goes on, the hotter the glare she is pressing against John Diggle's face grows. She's seen this happen before, and she hates it. Hates the way people are so quick to misunderstand emotions – how they are so slow to learn that sometimes what they think is kindness, translates on someone else's skin as slow cruelty and nothing more than that.

There is no world in which a hard beating would be considered kind, but ending inevitable pain as quickly as you can, must be better than this game that John is putting on, just because he's hesitant to knock out a girl.

That's not kind. That's selfish and thoughtless.

If he knew that girl would claw his eyes out of she could maybe he'd rethink his stance, Felicity thinks darkly.

"Stop playing with her and end it already!" She snaps, raising her voice for the first time since the newbies have laid eyes on her. It seems to take a few of them by surprise. Isabel smirks at her and raises a single eyebrow at her words, which makes Felicity's fists itch to slam against her perfect face.

Thankfully for all involved though, John Diggle takes her advice to heart and one hard hit to the jaw later, Sara Lance hits the ground hard and doesn't get back up.

Isabel watches Sara laying there for a couple of long moments, and Felicity watches Isabel - taking note of that hard glint in her eyes, that hungry shine of them that seems to never leave them when she's in the presence of someone weaker.

If Felicity needed one more reason to hate Isabel, this right now would be it.

Felicity moves towards the ring – reminding herself as she moves, to relax her shoulders and stop clenching her jaw. She hates it when she does that, and she does that all the time when she's on edge. This time she'd been clenching it so tight her whole face aches. She motions for Digg to come forward and help her carry Sara back to the infirmary. John lifts her, more gently than his big hands ever looked like they could be – he doesn't seem to need Felicity with him but just as she's about to step back to supervise the fights, Isabel reminds her of the rules: All initiates must be accompanied to the infirmary by at least one of their instructors to issue a formal report of the injury. Felicity's lips thin but she does what she has to. She doesn't look at anyone on her way out – especially not at Oliver, though she can feel his eyes pressing hotly against the side of her face.

Felicity's steps down the Dauntless corridors are fast, setting a brisk pace. Leaving the initiates alone with Isabel makes her nervous. She wishes that she didn't care but she does. It makes her feel irresponsible, like she's leaving kids alone with a babysitter who likes to sharpen knives.

She finishes with the report in record time.

"Stay with her until a nurse comes by to check him." She orders John firmly as she walks out.

Regret comes in many different tastes - like ice-cream. And just like ice-cream, it can make your head numb if you rush to swallow to much of it too soon.

When she first came to Dauntless and had her first try of ice-cream, Felicity experienced her first brain-freeze in 16 years of life. Even now she has trouble remember to eat slowly when it comes to mint chip, in particular.

The feeling is strangely similar though, to the one she's feeling now.

She left for fifteen minutes. Fifteen! She counted! And within that timeframe, Isabel managed to dangle someone over the Chasm.

'Dauntless never give up' That's what she'd said to them. And a small part of Felicity wonders, is she the one that has it wrong? Is this really the way it should be? After all, we're Dauntless – we're are the ones who are supposed to stand up for those who can't, the ones that are supposed to push past limits, do the things that others aren't able to do. We're supposed to be the rocks on which every danger breaks before it reaches everyone else. Felicity hates to admit it but Isabel is right on that: Dauntless should never give up, because in real life giving up would mean that the person shoulder to shoulder with me would die because of that cowardice.

But how right she is in the way she chooses to teach that lesson though… Felicity really has no answer for that. And sometimes she's glad that she can still question herself, despite how certain she is in her own mind. People who are unshakable are the most dangerous kind of people.

He has a tattoo peeking from his collarbone the next time she sees him. A sort of bird, inked in black on his skin. She wonders if he went to Shado to have it done, if she spoke of him of anything. She usually never does, unless she's sure of the person she's speaking to.

"When you stand in front of an opponent, you have to remember that no matter who they are, they are first and foremost a person and every person you will ever meet has a weakness. Finding it will help you win against them."

That's what she'd told them yesterday, and she hopes they can all remember that lesson today. Outside Dauntless, people think that theirs is the brainless faction, the brute strength one – but Felicity's experience alone stands as proof that that's not true.

Still, no matter how much they improve in the next few sessions of training, that's not enough to save Oliver from a hard beating when he is up against Sebastian Blood.

It's especially brutal because, though Oliver fights hard, violence doesn't seem to come naturally to him like it does to some of the others and this makes him hesitates at dealing it out. In real life, hesitation could cost him dearly, but here in training that wouldn't necessarily preclude a win. But he's not just fighting against anyone; he's fighting against Blood, who not only enjoys being able to inflict pain, but also actively takes pleasure on his opponents' misery. Against him, Oliver's strategy – or lack of it – gets him a lot more hurt than he can and should be able to afford.

Felicity – and most likely Oliver too – knows by the first five minutes that he's going to lose, and lose badly. He's already taken too many hits in too many places. But Oliver doesn't give in at any moment though, doesn't take the easy way out of pretending to be knocked out. She knew he wasn't going to do that, ever.

It's not pride, like many would probably think. It's resolve. He's a strange mix of determination and potential for power lingering just an inch below the surface in a quiet way that simply demands attention. Not really the kind of person that would never be happy to be tucked away in a safe spot and be content there, without even trying. If he wasn't like that, he wouldn't have spilled that drop of blood on those hot coals, even though his test gave him a Erudite result.

No, it's not pride, she thinks, as he takes the fifth hard punch to the jaw and shakes it off. He has plenty of that too, but it's not what drives him. It's fearlessness.

But she can't really bear witness to senseless, needless violence for much longer. It's never been a game to her - not ever, though people used to think it was, back when she was as vicious as she could be in a fight just to make it end sooner. (It became her calling card: the merciless one that will never cut anyone any slack. they never really understood her, but that was always ok with Felicity. she'd rather be misunderstood, than transparent.) Once it becomes clear that Oliver can't fight back anymore, but he won't stop getting up either, Felicity turns around and steps out of the training room, her heart beating so hard against her ribs and spine she feels like she's swaying a little as she walks. Because she knows what's going to happen and she can't stand watching it. She knows Blood would enjoy toying with him until Isabel got bored and told him to finish it.

Her palms sweat just at the thought of it.

She walks faster in the Pit's corridors and her hands shake, her vision blurs. Absently she wonders if she's having a minor panic attack, and it's really such a repeated experience that it's as if it's happening to someone else, even as her own heart flutters.

But as she finds a silent former in the pit's corridors and methodically lets herself shake apart and then pieces herself back together as if this were just another simulation, Felicity can't shake the bad feeling that lingers. A feeling that is more like a shadow over her every step, after that thought came to her as she watched Oliver get back up time and time again, even in a hopeless confrontation: 'you know who he reminds you of. You know. Stop pretending that you don't.'

Of course she knows. God, sometimes she wishes she could just forget, but that's impossible. She could no more forget that, than she could forget her own name.

Yes she knows. And that knowledge had dropped on her like a stone and made feel the chill of cold sweat down her spine. It grabs her by the throat and refuses to let go. She hates where it leads her, what is says about her. What it says about him! What it could mean for him.

Because even though she doesn't even know him, not really, not beyond what a careful eye on him could ever tell her, still the last thing she wants is for Oliver to end up like Tommy did.

Something changes – shifts imperceptibly – after that day.

Oliver ends up in the infirmary for a whole day, after his fight with Blood, and Felicity has to compile a list of at least 24 reasons why going to visit him would be a horrible idea. Most of the time she can hardly remember them but their existence helps keep the impulse in check. It feels a lot like being submerged in a full tank and suddenly the temperature of the water starts chancing. Where before there was just a vague warmth, now the heat is starting to feel threatening and just like she would feel the water against every inch of her skin and hair, and in the cling of her clothes pulling her down, she feels the change everywhere. In the way she looks at him, in the way she's a bit weary of him now, of how he makes her feel. Of the fact that he makes her feel, period. Makes her want to do and say things that she doesn't normally want to with other people. It's such a strange way to be, for her. She's never had to forcibly stop herself from talking to someone before. Never felt the impulse to over share. Self-preservation has never failed her in the past. The fact that it does now leaves her flailing for balance. Living with that change that she can't control makes her uneasy… because though she knows there is nothing good or safe about it, she doesn't really want to stop it either.

She tries to keep off her face the vicious satisfaction she feels when Blood gets beat up by Lawton on their next fight, but it's hard to contain it. The only thing that keeps her biting her lips from smiling at Blood's face hitting the mat hard is the fact that she is aware, still, that Isabel might be watching.

But it doesn't stop her from watching for him the day of their outing to the fence, even as she stands so close to the tracts that if she were to lean forward, the train might take her nose with it. When she sees him, at the end of the line, walking with a limp after Sara Lance, his face more black and blue than flesh-toned and his eyes swollen almost to the point of being shut, something inside her drops down, down, down - she feels it's absence all the way to the fence. She has to blink and clench and un-clench her hands several times to feel like herself again.

She pulls herself up into the moving train after Lance with an ease that comes from practice, grips the rail hand, plants her feet and extends her hand to help him up. He grips her arm just below the elbow, his hand warm and his fingers so long they wrap all around her forearm and then some. She pulls him up without much difficulty. He murmurs his thanks without looking at her.

She stands close to the open door after, watching the buildings and the tracks rush by her, half her body hanging out of it though her fingers are gripping the rails tight and her feet are planted firmly inside the cart. She wants to distract herself. She'd rather feel the sting of fear digging its teeth deeper into her as the height grows, than that painful contortion of her insides whenever she glances at Oliver's bruised face.

"Feeling ok there, Queen? No permanent damage, I hope? It would be a real shame to scar that pretty face of yours."

Felicity hears Blood's voice as if from a distance and she stiffens. A part of her had expected this. Blood's face is no better, but he's taken to calling Oliver names like 'pretty boy' and 'dollface' and stupid shit like that, just a get a rise out of him. It's what's he's trying to do now, as well.

Oliver's expression darkens and his hands clench into fists but before he can say anything, Sara's already there.

"Never mind his face, Blood. You should watch your head." she snaps, her smile slow and mean. "It would be a shame if Lawton managed to knock you out so hard even the last neurons left in your skull dropped outa your ears."

Blood's eyes harden but Felicity's not about to let this go any further.

"If I have to listen to your shit excuses of wit any longer, I'm throwing someone off this train." She warns evenly from where she's standing by the open doorway. She doesn't raise her voice despite the whipping wind getting louder as the train picks up speed, but they all get very quiet regardless. She turns around then, facing the moving landscape again, but even though peripherally, she can that that Oliver keeps sneaking glances at her. His eyes are as tangible on her as the wind is, whipping her clothes against her body.

What do you see when you look at me?

She's never wondered about it like this before. Not just for the sake of knowing, not without the shadow of danger present behind that question. But for the first time in what feels like ever, Felicity lets herself wonder about it, tries to see herself as he might see her. Always all in black, small and stern and unforgiving. Harsh and pale, with dark lips and dark eyes, never speaking unless it's to snap at them to shut it. Never with anything nice to say unless it's about their training.

She probably isn't that different from Isabel in his eyes. It's the way it should be – she's his instructor. He's not supposed to see her as a real person. The thought makes her throat burn regardless.

Damn it!

They're almost out of the city completely - the dilapidated buildings are gone, replaced by yellow fields and train tracks. Felicity's the first one to jump out of the train once the train stops under a yawning. The Initiates file out too and follow her to the wall. It stretches further than any of them can see, wrapping around the whole city, with high tension towers built on top of it and a barbed fence around them.

Past it, there's a cluster of trees, most of them dead, some green.

"Follow me," Felicity tells them as she leads them toward the gate, which is as wide as a house and opens up to the cracked road that leads to the city. "If you don't rank in the top five at the end of initiation, you will probably end up here," she explains as he reaches the gate. "Once you are a fence guard, there is some potential for advancement, but not much."

"What rank were you?" Blood asks. She supposes it's a sign that he still remembers what the cold barrel of a gun feels against his forehead that he waits for her to be done speaking before he asks that.

She looks levelly at Blood and says, "I was first."

"And you chose to do this?" Blood's eyes are wide and round and dark green, disbelief writing in almost innocent lines across his face and Felicity would believe it, if she hadn't seen the glee he takes at beating down people who are weaker than him. "Why didn't you get a government job?"

"I didn't want one," she tells him flatly. "Come on, let's move."

She guides them in the fields beyond the wall, tells them to stay close by.

She doesn't miss the way Oliver stays close to Sara and his friends, even as they mill about. Felicity feels the trickle of a foreign feeling at their closeness, but she holds on to gratefulness instead, because Sara Lance may be small, but she is the fiercest creature Felicity has met in a long while and if anyone tries to get at Oliver again, she will show them her teeth and a growl, the way she did before.

'I'm going to teach her how to win her next fight.' Felicity decides, and nods to herself shallowly. I'm going to teach her the same way Shado taught me.

…though she won't teach her any of the lethal techniques. Not that. Felicity doesn't want anyone knowing she can do that. That she's capable of it.

She remembers the look on Shado's face years ago, when she's snuck her arm around Isabel's throat and jerked her backwards, ready to tighten her grip and snap her neck. She'd never meant to kill her, not really. It had been just a fighting move, a way to end the match.

It's what Felicity tells herself every time. She doesn't remember how true it is anymore. In that moment she hadn't known anything but her own rage…

Either way, she doesn't want to see that look on another's persons face if she can help it. Nobody is supposed to know she is that ugly inside, nobody.

She lets them walk around a while, talk to the guards that guard the wall, lets herself relax a bit as she takes in the fields beyond, the green and yellows of them. She's always found them calming, even though she's never felt she could belong in a peaceful and joyful faction like Amity. She has too much war inside herself for that.

A loud shriek brings her back to the present and immediately she turns towards the sound, hand already going to where she keeps her concealed gun at the small of her back, but then she stops.

It's just a little girl, she notices, in a deep blue jacket, running through the fields as fast as a bat outa hell and straight into the middle of the Initiates, light brown curls streaking behind her. She jumps in Oliver's arms like it's nothing, like she expects him to pick her up and trusts him to do it without fail. Which he does, though he can't quite hide the grimace on his face when her tiny body impacts what must be his sore ribs. But the kid doesn't see it. She's holding on to him for dear life, skinny arms around his neck like a vice. And there's a secret smile on Oliver's face as he holds her back, her little feet dangling in the air, peace and longing arranging his bruised features into an expression she's never seen before.

Felicity finds herself blinking at the sight – her mind stunned into silence.

She keeps watching as he sets her down and crouches in front of her. Watches as he tries to smile, but can't quite manage it for long because it hurts. The kid reaches out, but he stops her hand before it touches his face. When the kid turns to scowl at something Digg says, Felicity sees her face. She looks a bit like him – they have the same eyes: wide and strong and stubborn as hell.

They're family, Felicity realizes. She must be his sister. There is no other way to read the look on his face, the way affection lights him up, softens everything about him.

Something inside her squeezes painfully so hard that she has to look away to be able to breathe again.

It's another five minutes before she kisses him goodbye over his left cheekbone – the one place where the bruises haven't managed to crawl over – and runs back to her class. Her teacher had to call her twice before she decided to leave and join her friends. She must be on a field trip out here. Felicity remembers those.

Maybe she'll be Dauntless too, Felicity thinks as she watches the kid wave one last time before she climbs on the school bus. She certainly had glared at Blood hard enough to make her thinks she was willing to take him right then and there.

She has no idea how she finds herself by his side, but once she's there, he turns his head towards her as if he heard her coming. They're alone, the others already filing in single line in front of the gate so that they can get back to the train.

"You know… I am starting to understand why you left Erudite." She says slowly, keeping her face impassable. Usually she has to look up at his face when she talks to him he's so tall, but right now he's sitting, his eyes a couple of inches lower than hers. And though she has the higher ground between the two, it's starting to feel more unsteady by the second. "You seem to have a knack for making stupid decisions."

He frowns at her.

"It was a five minutes conversation."

"It was five minutes too long." Felicity reiterates immediately. Her eyes are steady on his, and she wants to will him to understand the words she's not saying. "Faction before blood, remember?"

Anger lights up his eyes and though it's silent, she can head the words in his head clearly. 'fuck that'. They're right there – at the clench of his jaw, at the tightening of his fists. Felicity sighs. From this close it's hard to escape the damage to his face. His eye is not quite swollen shut but it's close, the skin looking thin and red around it. It will bruise badly – same as his cheekbone and jaw is bruising. The split over his lip looks like it stings and the one over his eyebrow had to have stitches.

Before she knows what she's doing or even reasons why, she reaches out, fingertips brushing against the side of his face where the bruises are already turning yellow. He doesn't move, doesn't even breathe.

"You know… you will start doing better once you realize that you have to attack first."

He blinks slowly. "That would help?"

Felicity nods. "Go on offence. You're fast for someone of your stature - though not as fast as Lance, nor as smart."

He huffs, but his eyes are still trained very carefully on her, listening like he's taking in every word and branding it against his brain.

"She fights smart – you could stand to learn a thing or two from her. Throw your whole body into every hit, never take your eyes off your opponent and when you see an opening, go in and jam to the throat."

His eyes widen just a little bit and that's when Felicity realizes how cold she must sound to him.

Her hand falls to her side just as her heart meets the bottom of her feet.

"I'm surprise you know all that." He says slowly, his voice low and a bit rough around the edges. "Considering you walked out of my one and only fight."

Felicity gulps. This time she does look away.

"Yeah. It wasn't something I wanted to watch." But before he can ask her what she means by that, she nudges his foot with hers. "Come on, train should be here any minute, we have to move."

She turns around and walks away but in a couple of steps, he's right by her side again.

"What do you think is out there?" he asks, his long steps keeping up with her smaller, faster ones. Felicity's finger twitch.

Stop asking so many questions.

"Do you know?"

No she doesn't. And she doubts anyone does, no matter how readily answers leaves people's mouths.

"Let's just say that the fence was built for a reason." She chooses to say instead. A non-answer answer. She knows them well. Oliver's eyes hold hers and she's thinking he knows them well too. It's like he can hear the words she doesn't say. The thought makes her uncomfortable enough to want to fidget. Instead she just walks faster.

Yes, the wall was built for a reason. But usually the reasons for those kind of things are only two: to keep people out, or to keep people in. And nobody here really know which one it is.

"Yeah, everything around here has a reason." Oliver says as he eyes the closing gate behind them, separating the city from the Amity fields behind the wall. "But it kinda makes me wonder what that reason is, if they have to lock the door from the outside."

Felicity stops in her tracks, her head jerking to look at him. Oliver stops too, like he's waiting for her. She leans closer to him, almost an inch from his face and Oliver braces, tells himself not to back away. He doesn't really want to, but he can't do what he wants to do either.

Absently, he wonders if the way his stomach falls to his feel whenever she comes close to him is because he fears her a little bit despite what he tells himself… or because of something else.

He knows he doesn't fear her. So it must be something else.

His palms sweat.

"Those are the kind of thoughts you should keep to yourself, Queen."

And it's like she's telling him to be careful all over again, just like she did his first day. It seems to him sometimes that that's all she tells him to do, no matter with which words she chooses to do it with.

The train starts to move and they have to run to catch it. She jumps in first. This time, when she extends her hand to help him in, Oliver doesn't hesitate to grab it.