A/N: Here it is guys- the chapter full of answers! This is also full of feels so…you've been warned ;)

I don't own Arrow or its characters.

The first time Oliver wakes up that night it's to the sensation of being watched, the tingle in his neck setting off alarms in his head.

He flips over and Felicity lets out a little gasp, stumbling back from the edge of the bed.

"Hey," he says sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

"Hi," she whispers. "Sorry I woke you up."

"That's okay."

Felicity gives him a tight smile. She's wringing her hands.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

"Can't sleep," she says, looking tiny and vulnerable in a torn MIT tee shirt and little boxer shorts.

"Can I get in with you?" she whispers nervously.

"Sure." He pulls the covers back for her and Felicity crawls into his bed.

"Thanks," she says quietly, curling up to face him, her hair spilling over the pillow.

"You okay?"

Felicity pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs. "Not really."

"You want to talk about it?"

She shakes her head. "No thanks."

Oliver finds her hand under the covers. "You know you're going to have to talk about it sometime, right?"

"Do you talk about it?"

"What?"

"What happened to you."

"Oh," he says in surprise. "No, not really."

She pouts. "Then why do I have to?"

"Because you don't want to end up like me."

Felicity looks up at him in confusion. "Why not?"

"I'm kind of a mess," he says quietly.

"No, you're not," she argues.

"No?" Oliver raises a challenging eyebrow.

"No, come on. You have a job, and you have a nice place to live, and you have dinner every week with your mom and sister, which is adorable by the way, and you take care of your body, like, really good care-"

"Felicity," he cuts her off, grinning.

"See?" she says gently. "You're not a mess. You're just sad."

Oliver sighs and kisses the top of her head. "You're a sweet kid, you know that?"

"I'm not a kid," she says, sounding a little offended. "I'm twenty-two."

"Twenty-two feels like a million years ago to me."

"Oliver," she says quietly, "do you think of me as a kid?"

He looks down at her, those wide blue eyes, and he can't lie suddenly, him, the guy Laurel accused once of being a pathological liar.

"No," he says honestly. "I don't."

xxx

The next time he wakes Felicity is crawling over his body to run to the bathroom.

"Felicity?" he questions, and is answered by the sound of her vomiting.

He stumbles out of bed and she's hunched over the toilet in his bathroom, dry heaving, tears rolling down her cheek.

"Hey," Oliver murmurs, pulling her hair away from her face.

Felicity makes a horrible retching noise and bends over, gagging, but nothing comes out.

"Water," she gasps.

He fills a cup from the tap and hands it to her. Felicity swallows and then starts to cough and the water ends up in the toilet.

Oliver rubs her back and Felicity whimpers, her legs shaking.

"I think I'm done," she says faintly, and falls back into him.

Oliver flushes the toilet with his foot and pulls Felicity to the sink. Her face is a mess, tear stained and streaked with snot and a little string of puke.

"Let's clean you up, okay?" he says gently, and picks her up and sits her on the counter next to the sink.

He takes a washcloth and holds it under lukewarm water. Felicity shudders, more tears sliding down her face.

"Okay," he says softly, lifting the washcloth to her cheek. "You're okay."

Felicity lets out a dry sob as he wipes her up. "Is it in my hair?"

"What?"

"Did I get it in my hair?" she cries.

"Your hair is fine," he tells her, wiping off her mouth and throwing the washcloth in the hamper.

Felicity moans and presses the heel of her hand into her forehead. "She loves my hair."

"Who?"

Felicity shuts her eyes and moans again, slumping forward, her arms looping around his waist.

"Hey," Oliver says. "Talk to me, Felicity."

"Oh god," she moans, into his chest. "Oh god, she's dead."

"What?" Oliver cups her neck worriedly. "Who's
dead?"

Felicity starts to shake in his arms. "She's dead," she moans again. "She's dead, he killed her, she's dead."

"Hey." Oliver pulls Felicity up and holds her by the shoulders so he can see her face.

She looks dazed, staring a spot at the wall, whispering, dead, dead, she's dead. Her whole body is trembling and Oliver suddenly flashes back to the night Felicity came to him.

The blank stare in her eyes. Her hands shaking in her lap.

She wasn't acting weird. She was in shock.

He is a fucking moron. How could he not recognize it?

What had she said the other day, when he'd found her crying in her room? She'd wanted her mom but she couldn't talk to her.

Fuck.

"Felicity," he says forcefully, cupping her cheek. "Look at me."

She blinks slowly, and her eyes do a glacial shift to him.

"Hey," he says softly. "Tell me what happened to your mom."

Felicity inhales shakily, trying to look away.

"Look at me," he commands. "Stay with me, Felicity."

She bites her lip and he rubs his thumb along her cheekbone.

"Come on," he urges. "You can do this."

Felicity shudders with her whole body and lets out a low cry.

"She's dead," she sobs brokenly. "He killed her."

"Who?" he pushes. "Who killed her?"

"No!" Felicity shrieks, and covers her face in her hands. "Stop it stop it stop it-"

"Hey, hey." He pulls her to his chest and she slumps against him, her little sobs ripping his heart apart.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "You don't have to tell me anything else."

They stay there like that until she stops crying. He offers her a tissue and Felicity blows her nose and leans against him, her eyes red and puffy.

"You want some tea or something?" he murmurs.

"Okay," she says, her voice hoarse from crying.

He puts her on the couch in the living room and wraps a blanket around her shoulders. In the kitchen he boils water and pours it into a mug, and finds a box of chamomile tea Thea bought for him.

When he brings the tea to her Felicity has her fingers curled in the blanket, her head propped back against the couch. She looks exhausted, and devastated, and still so pretty, even with swollen red eyes.

"Careful," he says quietly, setting the mug down on the coffee table. "It's hot."

He sits down next to Felicity and she curls into him immediately, swinging her legs across his lap and burrowing her face into his right shoulder.

"Hey," he murmurs. "Okay?"

She shakes her head and her hands come to his waist, like she's trying to anchor herself to him.

"Oliver?" she whispers.

"Yeah."

She shudders and her nails dig into his skin.

"It's okay," he says softly. "You can say it."

Felicity pulls her head up to look at him and he can tell by the look on her face that whatever's she's about to say is going to tear her apart.

She takes in a big breath and shifts suddenly so she's all the way in his lap, her legs falling to the sides.

"I wasn't supposed to be there," she says, staring at his chest.

"Where?"

"Home. Vegas." Felicity blinks a few times and then continues. "I graduated from MIT a few weeks ago. I was going to go straight to Starling and stay with Sara until my Q.C. interview."

"What happened?"

"Nyssa had a job come up, in Vegas. Sara went with her. She convinced me to go there from Boston. It was only supposed to be for a few days, so I figured I'd see my mom and then I'd drive up here with Sara and Nyssa."

"So what happened?" he asks, brushing the hair off her face.

Felicity starts to shake and he rubs her arms worriedly.

"Felicity, hey, look at me."

She drags her eyes up to him and they're filled with tears.

"You're safe," he reminds her. "You're with me, okay?"

She nods tightly and swallows. "Sara picked me up from the airport and took my to my mom's house. She went back to her hotel. When I went inside..."

Felicity sucks in a huge breath and bursts into tears.

"Oh, hey, come here." Oliver cups the back of her neck and guides her head down to his chest.

"I'm sorry," Felicity sobs, clutching at him.

"Shh, it's okay. You can stop."

"No." Felicity rubs her eyes angrily. "If I don't get this out I never will."

"Okay," he says, running his fingers up and down her spine. "Take your time."

She sniffs and wipes her face with the back of her hand.

"Oliver?"

"Yeah?"

"Did Sara tell you about my dad?"

"No," he says, confused. Her dad?

"Really?" Felicity looks surprised. "I thought she would have told you."

Oliver shakes his head. "Sara wouldn't tell me anything. She said she promised."

"Oh. Well, anyway, he...he left when I was six. My mom never wanted to talk about him. I grew up without knowing anything about him really, except..."

"What?" Oliver whispers.

"He wasn't a good guy."

"What do you mean?"

Felicity shrugs hesitantly. "I'm not sure, but I know it was bad. Organized crime. He had some scary friends. I don't even know why he and my mom divorced, but it's not hard to imagine."

"Anyway." Felicity gnaws at her bottom lip nervously, and Oliver resists the urge to pull it out of her mouth. "I got to the house and...he-was there."

"Your dad?"

"Yeah," Felicity says faintly. "He and my mom were screaming at each other. He-he had a gun. They saw me and my mom told me to run and he-he-"

Felicity's hands fly to her mouth to cover the dry sob that slips past her lips and her eyes slam shut.

"Felicity." He cups her face in his hands and she feels so fragile that it scares him. "Open your eyes."

Her eyelids flutter and with a shaky exhale Felicity opens her eyes.

"Hey," he says softly. "You're with me. You're not there anymore, you can't get hurt, okay?"

Felicity nods frantically. "Okay."

"Felicity," he asks, her name like razors in his throat, "what happened next?"

Felicity whimpers and he presses his forehead to hers. She exhales slowly, her hands wrapping around his forearms.

"I'm with you," he says, because that's what he wanted, more than anything, when he was floating on a raft in the fucking sea after his father shot himself.

For someone, anyone, to be there. For someone to carry some of the grief for him.

"He-he-" Felicity gasps and her nails cut into his skin.

"You can do it," he whispers. "You're with me, you're safe. Say it."

"He killed her. He shot her right in front of me," Felicity says, and collapses against him in a heap of tears.

"I'm so sorry," he murmurs painfully, holding her tightly to his chest, because what else is there to say? "I'm so sorry."

"Oliver," she whimpers, pressing her damp cheek to the side of his neck. "Oliver."

"I'm here," he says, wondering how the hell he became qualified to take care of a girl going though a trauma like this.

Not that Oliver isn't extensively well versed in trauma. Maybe it's like AA and he can be Felicity's sponsor.

Damaged People Anonymous.

Felicity rubs her cheek against his stubble, weeping, and his fingers thread through her hair. Felicity curls one small hand behind his neck and presses her face to his, lips only centimeters from his mouth.

"I'm scared," she whispers. "Oliver, I'm so scared."

"Shh." He cups the back of her head. "I've got you. You don't have to be scared anymore."

Felicity blinks down at him, her eyelashes clumping together from her tears. He breathes tightly, feeling something-some change in the air, some sense of gravitas he's only just become aware of.

"Felicity?" he questions, because she's staring at him like she needs him and his chest hurts and he has no idea what's happening.

She kisses him.

xxx

A/N: Please leave a review :)