A/N: Hi! Sorry the updates have been a bit slower than usual; life got in in the way. Fair warning, this chapter is pretty angst-y. Just remember: sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. And I promise they will get better :)

I don't own Arrow or its characters.

Oliver and Felicity tiptoe around each other for a few days after she breaks things off. She's polite as ever, showing up at the foundry each night like nothing has changed.

Things have changed. She doesn't really talk to him anymore, choosing to latch onto Dig and Roy instead, making him feel like an outsider in his own lair.

Felicity doesn't let him touch her anymore. She doesn't make a big deal out of it but she carefully steps out of his grasp when he tries to touch her shoulder or her wrist.

There's always at least three feet of space between them now, Felicity makes sure of that.

It hurts but Oliver understands.

He hurt her by trying to keep her at arms length so he wouldn't hurt her. He doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as her.

He doesn't deserve anything.

xxx

He's working on a new kind of arrow, messing around with the design while Diggle and Roy train on the mats, when Felicity sidles up to him.

"Looks good," she says softly.

"Thanks," he murmurs, carefully pointing the arrow away from her and laying it down on the table.

"Do you have a minute?" she asks, pulling her bottom lip in between her teeth.

"For you?" He tries to smile but can't really figure out how. "Always."

Felicity gives him a sad smile that breaks his heart. "I...um, I can't come in tomorrow. I need the night off."

"Why?" he asks, frowning. "What's wrong?"

"I have a date," she says quietly.

"You have a what?" he growls, making Felicity back away from him.

"I'm sorry, I know the timing is terrible," she says, looking alarmed at his reaction. "But he's a nice guy and I already did a background check on him and it came back clean, and it's not like anyone else wants to take me on a date."

"You said yes?" he asks numbly.

"Yeah," she says softly. "I did."

"Fine," he mutters, ignoring the tightening in his chest. "Take off tomorrow night, all week, whatever. Doesn't matter."

"It doesn't matter?" Felicity echoes icily. "Really? So you don't care?"

"You already said yes."

"Oliver."

He risks looking at her and then wishes he hadn't, because Felicity looks on the verge of tears.

"Tell me not to go," she says. "Tell me and I won't."

He blinks. "No one tells you what to do, Felicity."

She huffs impatiently. "You could ask me not to go."

"I won't do that."

"Why not?"

"You wanted to go or you would have said no." He turns away from her and picks up his arrow. "Enjoy your date."

"Fine," he hears her say scathingly. "I will."

She doesn't say goodbye but the clack of her heels on the stairs echo through the foundry.

"Dude," Roy says. "You're a moron."

"Excuse me?"

"She wanted you to tell her not to go."

"That's not what it sounded like," Oliver grumbles.

"She was testing you."

His head jerks up. "What?"

"Oh my god," Roy laughs. "And they hold you up as the paramour of mankind."

"Paramour?" Oliver raises an eyebrow.

"What?" Roy says defensively. "Just 'cus I didn't go to private school doesn't mean I don't know anything."

xxx

Oliver decides to give everyone the night off, because without Felicity they're severely limited. Dig hasn't been home to put Sara to bed in almost a week and Roy wants to take Thea to some margarita bar she won't shut up about out.

So Oliver stays in the foundry, alone, because everyone else has a life, a real life, outside of the Arrow.

He rolls his shoulders and punches the dummy again, reminding himself that this is real life.

Here, alone.

Then Felicity's words come back to him. Maybe, just maybe, you deserve more than a cold basement and a quiver full of arrows.

Oliver steps away from the dummy and rips the tape off his knuckles.

He tries not to think about Felicity. What she ate for dinner, how much she's had to drink. If the guy she's with makes her laugh. If she'll go home with him.

That leads him to think about Felicity screwing a stranger, which makes him want to pick up her precious computer babies and smash them over her desk.

His phone rings.

To his surprise it's almost midnight already. He had no idea how much time he had lost all night down in the lonely basement of Verdant, all alone.

Felicity's number flashes on the screen.

Oliver picks up immediately, thinking the worst. That the guy was an asshole, that she's hurt, that she's afraid. That she needs him.

"Felicity?"

"Oli-Oliver?"

"Yeah, it's me. You okay?"

"Uh-huh. Yeah. I'm pretty drunk," she admits.

"Where's your date?" he asks, trying so hard not to sound mean, like he gives a damn where the guy is and why Felicity is calling him, now, sounding like she's shit faced.

"Gone," she mumbles into the phone. "Where all the men go. Gone into the void."

"What do you mean, gone?"

"Doesn't matter," she slurs. "You all leave, anyway."

"What's wrong? Where are you?"

"Nothing's wrong. I don't need you to swoop in with your pretty face and your ridiculous body and rescue me, Oliver."

"Felicity, you're drunk and you're alone, where are you?"

She sighs into the phone. "Bar 7. It's on-"

"Wilshire and Seventh. Stay there, I'm on my way."

xxx

Oliver parks his Ducati on Seventh Avenue and walks through the black doors of Bar 7. He instantly enters a crush of young twenty-somethings in tight dresses and button downs. He has to push through them, head swiveling around to look for a petite blond.

He finally spots Felicity sitting at the bar by the far wall. She's slumped over a stool, head resting on her folded arms. Her little black cocktail dress is riding up her thighs and random strands of hair are falling out of her bun.

She looks beautiful, and sad. He wants to kill the guy who left her here, like this.

"Oliver!" Her head perks up when she sees him make his way to her. She isn't wearing her glasses and her eyeliner is smudged.

"Hey," he says softly, hand light on her elbow. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she insists. "But Oliver. He," she glares pointedly at the bartender, "won't let me drink anymore."

"Sorry man," the skinny guy behind the bar says, with a crazed look in his eye that comes from fielding so many drunk demands from strangers. "Thought she'd had enough when she fell off the stool."

"You what?" he yells, turning to Felicity. "How drunk are you right now?"

Felicity kicks him, like a toddler. "Lay off me, I'm having a bad night. I'm not Laurel, you don't have to freak out 'cus I had a few too many."

Oliver runs a hand through his short hair, biting back the kind of lecture he usually reserves for Thea when she does something impulsive and irresponsible. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," Felicity drawls. "F-I-N-E, got it buddy? I'm not your freaking damsel to rescue."

"Christ," Oliver mutters, turning back to the bartender. "Does she have a tab open?"

The bartender grins and Oliver surrenders his credit card. Felicity pitches towards him and presses her head into his stomach, her arms going around his waist. One of his hand drops down to her head, petting her hair.

Even when she's drunk and belligerent Felicity is adorable.

"Sorry I kicked you," she murmurs.

"It's okay."

"I miss you," she sniffs quietly, making his hand clench in her hair.

"I'm right here," he says quietly, signing the credit card statement and pocketing his wallet.

Felicity looks up at him and her pretty blue eyes fill with tears. "I still miss you."

He sighs and kisses the top of her head. "Come on. I'll take you home."

xxx

Oliver follows Felicity inside her apartment, watching her stumble to the couch and collapse facedown on the cushions. He goes into her kitchen and finds glasses in a cabinet. He fills one up with water from the filter in the fridge door and brings it to the living room.

"Hey." He nudges her. "Drink this."

Felicity opens one eye and squints. "What're you doing here?"

"Taking care of you."

That's clearly the wrong answer because Felicity's eyes flash and she sits up. "You're not my boyfriend, you don't have to take care of me."

Oliver sets the glass down on the coffee table. "I'm your friend."

"Lucky me," she says dully, rubbing her eyes, which only smears her eyeliner more.

"Felicity, what happened tonight?"

"Nothing."

He raises an eyebrow. "Want to try that again?"

She leans against the back of the couch, crossing her arms. "No."

"What happened on your date?"

"Nothing."

"Something happened," he pushes.

"What do you care?" she snarls. "You're the one that told me to go!"

"Which was obviously a mistake," he mutters.

"No shit, Sherlock."

"Look, I get that you're mad at me, or disappointed. It's fine, I understand, and if you want me to go, I will. But I'd really like to know that you're okay first."

Felicity snorts. "Am I okay? Well, let's see, shall we? I went on a lovely date tonight. He was charming, he had hair that does that swoop thing, you know? And his hands. Nice hands."

"Okay, I get it," he says gruffly. "Good for you."

"No, not good for me," she snaps. "He asked me out again and I told him no."

Oliver blinks. "Why?"

"Why do you think?"

"I honestly have no idea."

"Because he wasn't you."

"Felicity." Oliver reaches for her but she backs away, burrowing into the couch.

"Don't," she says angrily. "It's not fair. It's not fair, Oliver! Because while I was with him, all I could think of was that he won't touch me the way you touch me, and he won't look at me the way you look at me, and he'll never say my name the way you say it."

Felicity covers her face and bursts into tears.

"Felicity," he whispers, reaching out to touch her knee. "Hey, look at me."

She lifts her head, tears streaming down her face and cutting him like acid.

"I love you," she sobs. "And you love me. Why can't you say it?"

Oliver feels himself pale. "I just...please, Felicity, don't."

"Say it! Say it, you coward!"

"I can't!" he yells, stumbling back away from her. "I can't, okay?"

Felicity jumps up from the couch. "Why not?" she yells back. "You feel it. I know you feel it."

"Because if I say it then it's real!"

She flinches like she's been slapped. "You don't want us to be real?"

"If you and I, we're officially together, and something happened to you...I can't lose you, okay? Maybe that's selfish but I won't do it. I won't lose you."

"Don't you get it, you moron?" she screams. "You're already losing me!"

"Don't say that," he pleads.

"Just go," she cries. "I don't want you here anymore."

"Felicity please, just talk to me-"

"No! I am done, Oliver! If you want me, if you love me, then take me. I'm right here. Otherwise you can get the hell out of my apartment!"

"It's not that simple," he argues weakly.

Felicity blazes with anger, and even like this, drunk and crying, she's so beautiful he's almost dazed by it.

She pushes him lightly, so he stumbles back towards her door. "It should be."

xxx

Everyone still with me? Hang in there, the next chapter will be much more Olicity-friendly! Please remember to leave a review! I love hearing what you think :)