A/N: SPOILERS for 3x01 if you haven't seen it already.

Yes this is angsty. How could it not be?

Enjoy!

She'd known it was coming.

She'd known since they stood on the steps outside of Queen Consolidated earlier that day. Hearing him say those damning words to John in the foundry later hadn't been necessary.

So when they'd walked out of the hospital room and he spoke the phrase she knew was their death knell she couldn't help but try and fight it even though she knew she'd already lost.

Then he'd said the one thing that haunted her.

maybe.

And it wasn't fair. 'Maybe' meant hope. 'Maybe' meant someday. 'Maybe' meant it could be possible.

She couldn't live with that sort of liminality, not with him, not with what they did.

She knew it would break his heart as much as it would break hers when she demanded that he say never. But even if it wasn't true, even if it was a front it would be something definitive, something she could cling to and use as she tried to move past.

Felicity forgot one very important thing however. And when his lips stole her breath she remembered.

Oliver had never been able to lie to her.

For one brief beautiful second none of it mattered. All she knew was him.

She knew what it was like to be loved by Oliver Queen.

It was when their breaths mingled, lips still brushing against one another, both of them unwilling to part that it all rushed back and her heart twisted in grief.

He couldn't give her what she needed because he couldn't give himself what he wanted.

They were stuck in a purgatory of their own making.

She pulled back, pulled away, leaving him with empty hands as her traitorous fingers stole up to cover her lips because they were the only part of her that was still warm.

By the time she got to her car she was numb. She didn't remember driving home. Didn't remember unlocking her door or placing her bag and coat on her couch.

She did remember breaking down in the shower, finally allowing herself that small window of time in which to grieve. His final words were burned into her soul, 'Don't ask me to say I don't love you'

It left her breathless and made her heart clench every time she recalled how he'd sounded. She knew that no matter how hard she tried to move on, a part of her would always hold on to that hope, that possibility, even when it hurt.

She slept fitfully and finally gave up around five. Dressed and ready for a job she didn't actually have, she was sitting hollowly on her couch when the phone rang.

Oliver.

With shaking fingers she answered, not knowing what she'd hear.

However, everything that had happened between them vanished when she heard his rough, ragged breaths and the pain in his voice.

"It's Sara."