A/N: We're entering the home stretch, kids. This chapter continues on with 1x23. Thanks so much for all the reviews/follows/favorites. You're the best! Enjoy!

To say she was nervous was an understatement. Worried, scared, petrified, distressed, uneasy; she could use up an entire thesaurus and it wouldn't be enough.

She would hear back from Digg first. It was just geography. The location of Merlyn's warehouse was only blocks from Verdant, and Merlyn Global's headquarters was on the other side of town. Not hearing from Oliver was to be expected.

She tapped her fingers on the table as she waited for one of them to check in, and winced as she bit too hard on her lip. Her thumb brushed over the spot and she was jolted with a memory of what she'd been doing with Oliver not that long ago.

Her face got hot at the thought. Would she have let things continue if Diggle hadn't walked in, she questioned herself. Yes, absolutely, was the immediate answer.

She'd never felt this way about anyone before. She'd thought she'd had connections in the past; men who had excited her and made her heart race. They had nothing on Oliver.

Before she could go too far down the rabbit hole of what exactly a night with him might entail Digg's voice came over the comm and made her jump.

"I'm at the location." he said quietly

"Copy that." she replied

He was silent again, and she found herself holding her breath as he made his way through the building. When she didn't hear the sounds of fighting or gunfire she was actually concerned. Why wouldn't Merlyn have his prize weapon under heavy guard?

Oliver called in next, surprising her with how quickly he'd made it.

There was still nothing from Digg, but she didn't dare ask what he was doing.

Everything was quiet until she heard the deep voice of the modulator say, "Malcolm Merlyn, you have failed this city."

"Oliver, the device. It's gone." Digg sounded breathless.

Her heart dropped.

"Where is the device." Oliver demanded

"Safe." Merlyn replied smoothly, "I don't know how you got that trojan on my system but it prompted me to take precautions."

"Oh god, no." she whispered. Felicity clapped a hand over her mouth as bile rose in her throat.

Merlyn continued to talk, but she couldn't hear him. The rush of blood to her head had left her light headed, and all should could think was that she was the reason the device had been moved. If it was set off now it would be her fault.

The release of Oliver's arrow brought her back to the present, and she expected to hear the sound of Merlyn dying, but there was only silence.

Malcolm Merlyn's voice was calm, and deadly and she had no idea how he was still alive; Oliver never missed.

As he spoke the sick feeling returned, and her mind whirled as she realized they had been wrong all along. Malcolm Merlyn wasthe copy cat archer. He was the one who had almost killed Oliver before, and now he was facing him alone, again.

Her hands flashed across the keyboard and she cut the feed to Oliver for a moment so she could just talk to Diggle.

"Digg! It's Merlyn, he's the other archer! Please, go now!" she said desperately

"On my way." he responded, but the knot that had set up residence in her gut only tightened.

With trembling hands she turned Oliver's transmission back on and almost wished she hadn't. All she could hear was glass breaking and the sounds of bodies slamming into each other. Oliver let out a grunt of pain, and then there was static; the comm was broken.

"No!" she breathed out, and spun to another computer in a futile attempt to pull up Merlyn Global's internal security monitors, but it was no use.

"Digg! His comms are down. They fought...I don't..." her voice broke on the thought

"I'm almost there, Felicity." and she could hear the squeal of tires in the background.

It was a long ten minutes where she sat stock still, every muscle tensed as she waited to hear from Diggle.

"Felicity. There's no one here." he said quietly "There was a hell of a fight, but the place is empty."

She tried to respond but her throat was too clogged for her to speak.

"I'm coming back, see what you can do about tracking him down."

Felicity nodded her head even though no one could see her. Getting Oliver back was something she had to do.

The signal from the earpiece was toast, and his cell was also offline and untraceable. It had probably been broken in the battle. But there was one more avenue she had, and as she pulled it up on screen she made silent pleas that it hadn't been damaged.

Not long after she'd started working with them she suggested Oliver use some sort of tracking device. He'd scoffed at the idea, and Digg had teased him about being lo-jacked, but eventually he gave in and allowed her to install a tiny GPS chip in his boot. They'd never had a need to use it until now.

The chip was working, but the location was being blocked by an extremely impressive firewall.

"No, no, no, no, NO!" she screamed at the screen she could no longer see due to tears.

When Digg returned she was so absorbed in trying to hack her way around the firewall she didn't notice he was next to her until he laid a hand on her arm.

She jumped a foot and turned red rimmed eyes his direction.

"We're going to get him back." he said decidedly and she wanted to believe him.

She filled him in quickly, and his face lit up as he remembered the tracker in the boot.

"It's all we've got." she said in a small voice, "But if I can't get past that firewall..."

"Hey, you'll do it. I know you will." and she gave him the smallest of smiles, "Now, what can I do to help?"

"You can keep me supplied with coffee, and pep talks." she said with a small shrug and he headed out immediately.

Digg kept true to his word. There were numerous venti mochas, and even a hug about three hours in when she had a minor breakdown and had convinced herself Oliver was dead in the harbor already.

The work was tedious and she'd never felt such pressure before in her life, but very slowly she was working her way around. And then she was in. She'd managed to re-route the firewall and make it think it was operating, when in fact it wasn't.

"There!" she said excitedly and pulled the location up on a satellite map. It was an abandoned building right near the docks, and a cold chill washed over her as she realized her vision of Oliver's body being dumped in the water might not have been that off.

"Go get him! Go!" she all but pushed Digg out the door. "I'll start going through the rest of the data I took from the Merlyn mainframe."

The further she delved however, the more she realized she needed to see Unidac's work, and Unidac had been funded by Queen Consolidated's Applied Sciences department. If there was any evidence left of the what this device was there was a chance it was there, which meant she could get that information much faster from her desk in the IT department.

She didn't want to leave. It tore at her to know that Diggle was on his way to rescue Oliver and she would't be there when he got back. With a shuddering breath she recalled that her arrogant installation of a trojan on the Merlyn system was the reason they hadn't found the device earlier and now she needed to right that wrong.

Felicity typed out a quick text to Diggle to let him know where she was going, and to call her as soon as he had Oliver.

Luckily it was late enough there was no one around she knew and she wasn't interrupted by idle chatter. Once she was in the internal system Queen Consolidated used it didn't take long to break into the password protected files of the applied sciences division. Half an hour later she had uploaded the design schematics to Merlyn's device and had checked her phone at least a hundred times waiting on Diggle to call.

Her heels beat out a sharp tattoo as she walked hurriedly out of the building. The shrill ring of her phone cut through the night air and she came to a complete stop to fumble with it, not noticing anyone around her.

"Did you get him?" she asked immediately

"I've got him." Digg answered and she let out a shaky breath

"Oh thank god, is he ok?"

"Mostly" it wasn't the answer she wanted, but she'd take it. "What did you find?"

She ran a hand over her hair and exhaled sharply, the overwhelming relief she felt that he was alive hand't quite settled within her yet. "I uh...I have the plans for the device. If we can find it...I can shut it down."

"Good. I'll tell Oliver."

"Ok, I'm coming..." but she didn't get to finish, a dark figure walked up to her, and she recognized him immediately. It was Detective Lance, Laurel's father.

"Ms. Smoak. Hope I'm not interrupting anything important." he said evenly. Panic sliced through her as she wondered how much he had overheard.

"Felicity?" Digg's voice was tinny, and distant; her phone had fallen away from head.

"Uh, sorry, mom, I'm going to have to call you back." she said quickly and thumbed it off before turning back to the detective.

"Ms. Smoak." the detective said again and she turned wide eyes in his direction, "If you've got time in your busy schedule I'd like for you to come down to the station and answer a few questions." but she knew it wasn't a request.

She gulped audibly and stared at him in stunned silence.

He stretched a hand out behind him to his car in unspoken invitation, and she had no choice but to follow.

He allowed her to sit in the passenger seat, and the one time she dared ask him why he wanted to talk to her, he insisted they wait until they go to the precinct before he said.

She'd never been inside a police station before, and she felt more like a timid mouse than a member of the Hood's team as he guided her through a maze of desks.

By the time she was asked to leave all her personal belongings with the desk sergeant her heart was pounding so loudly she was afraid she'd have some sort of cardiac event right there in front of the drunk handcuffed to a bench.

Lance pushed open the door to the interview room and asked her to take a seat, the slam of the door made her rethink her request to stand.

She knew this was about Oliver, or rather, about the Hood, and her fears were confirmed when he began running through a long list of suspicious activity they'd found on her computer at Queen Consolidated, and everything connected her to the Hood.

Her stomach dropped, and she mentally railed against her stupidity to not cover her tracks better. No more hacking outside of the lair, she vowed.

Lance was interrupted when his phone rang, and she silently thanked whoever was allowing her this reprieve.

She tried to show no reaction when she heard the voice modulator even from across the room. It was Oliver.

She couldn't make out what he was saying, but Lance's body language changed drastically, and she assumed he had told him about the device.

"Looks like it's your lucky day." Lance said to her, looking decidedly paled than he had a few minutes ago. His head jerked towards the door. "Don't leave town." he ordered, and she scrambled to her feet.

As she hit the door though, something compelled her to stop. "You know, I used to think the vigilante was a criminal too. But...seems to me, whoever he is, he's willing to sacrifice an awful lot to help the people of this city." she tried to keep the emotion out of her voice, but she failed. "Kind of makes him a hero, doesn't it?" Before Lance could respond she shut the door behind her.

She retrieved her things and headed straight to the street. It was hard finding a cab this late, and she almost considered calling Digg, but she got lucky and a car pulled up just in time.

"Club Verdant" she said breathlessly and sank back into the seat, exhaustion creeping in on her. Her emotions were all over the place. She went from abject guilt and self loathing over not wiping her work computer, to heart flipping need to see Oliver with her own eyes, to terrified desperation that they weren't going to be able to stop Merlyn in time.

The club wasn't open when she arrived, and she raced around back to the rear entrance. Felicity punched in her code and then clattered down the metal staircase.

"Oliver!" she desperately called out halfway down, and she stilled as he appeared on the floor before her.

His face was battered, and he had white tape wrapped around his torso, but he was standing and breathing, and she couldn't ask for more than that.

She flew down the remaining steps and launched herself at him. He caught her with a grunt, but wrapped his arms securely around her as she buried her face in his neck and babbled about how she didn't think she'd see him again.

"I'm sorry." she said over and over until he finally set her down and took her face in his hands

"What could you possibly be apologizing for?"

"For tipping off Merlyn, and making Lance suspect me, and for not having a better way to track you." she trailed off, her hand brushing over every bruise and cut she could find. "And for not figuring out that Merlyn was the other archer."

His hand stilled hers, "We're all guilty of that." he said darkly, and sat her down. When he turned around she could see the mass of mottled bruising that used to be his shoulder and ribs and she gasped aloud.

"What did he do to you?" she said in a horrified whisper, and couldn't stop herself from tracing a hand over the worst of it.

"I'll be fine." he said definitively

She ignored his macho posturing, "Did you use the salve, with the stuff from the island?" Her head swiveled from Oliver to Digg who was trying to avoid her look.

"You didn't, did you? You just got the crap beat out of you by a psychopath, and held captive, and god only knows what else that I don't even know about, and all you did was have Digg tape your ribs. Am I right?" her fear came out as anger, and she stood before him, arms crossed, furious that he couldn't make the smallest of efforts. "And now you have to go out there, and fight him again." her voice broke. She took a deep breath to keep her chin from wobbling but it was pointless, "How are you supposed to shoot people with arrows if you don't take care of yourself."

He actually grinned at the absurdity of her statement and she couldn't help but give him a watery smile in return.

The action calmed her, and she set back on her heels and studied the two men in front of her. "So, what do we do now?"

Silence stretched between them as the weight of what they'd taken on settled in the space.

Oliver grimaced as he tugged a shirt over his head, and handed her the small pot of stage makeup they kept on hand to cover his regularly occurring injuries.

She looked at him over the top of her glasses, but sat her bag aside and took her coat off before she pushed him to sit down so she could see better.

"I think I need to go talk to my mother. She may have a way of finding out from Merlyn when he plans on setting off the device, or where he has it stored." his jaw was tight, and she couldn't stop from smoothing it with her thumb as she applied the concealer.

She nodded stiffly, "I'll keep digging through the data I pulled from the Merlyn mainframe. Maybe he's hidden the location in there, although I doubt it."

Her hands stilled as she considered the implications if they didn't find it in time. "When you called Lance earlier, you were telling him to evacuate the Glades, weren't you?"

"Yeah," he said sharply and stood up to pace away from her.

Oliver looked back and locked his eyes on Diggle, "You'll stay here and..." an unspoken moment stretched between them that she didn't understand.

"No place else I need to be." Digg confirmed

"I'll be back as soon as I can. If I find anything I'll let you know." Oliver said to them. His hand ran down her arm and tangled their fingers all too briefly before he grabbed his jacket and took the stairs two at a time.

"Let's get to work, jailbird." Digg said as the sound of the metal door slamming shut reverberated around them.

She clucked in mock outrage at his comment, "You two are bad influences on me. I've never even so much as had a parking ticket, and now you've got me breaking any number of federal and most likely international, laws."

Felicity made her way to the bank of computers and pulled the flash drive from her purse which held the schematics she'd downloaded.

Digg had proven to be relatively proficient when it came to technology, so she didn't mind when he sat next to her and began working as well.

She whistled low under her breath as the diagrams appeared. Deactivating the device was not going to be easy.

Diggle peeked over to see what she was working on, "Damn. That does not look like good."

"No, not at all." she agreed

"If Merlyn's moved it, do you think it's already in place?" he queried

"Possibly," she said, distracted as another file opened and she got a better look at the mechanism that controlled the machine directly.

"Maybe we should focus on finding out where it is then." Digg said pointedly, and she tore her gaze from the monitor to look at him.

"What? Sorry." He was looking at her in exasperation

"The device. We need to find out where it is first, or all the schematics in the world aren't going to help us."

"Right," she agreed "Ok then, let's see where you like to hide things, Malcolm Merlyn."

Two hours later Digg was cleaning weapons and she was about to pull her hair out in frustration.

"There is nothing here that gives me any idea where it could be." she pushed back from the desk and stretched her back, letting out a sigh when it popped satisfactorily.

Digg slid into her spot and she heard him clicking keys, but she didn't expect him to find anything.

"If you were Merlyn, where would you put it?" she said aloud as she paced the workspace

"Someplace no one would find it." he offered

"Obviously. Pull up a list of all of Merlyn's holdings in the Glades." she instructed but when Digg let out a groan she turned to see the majority of the area was lit up red.

"That's not going to help us narrow it down, is it?" she said dejectedly

Oliver's chest from the island was closed, but the book rested on top, and she picked it up without thought.

As she flipped through it she kept coming back to the symbol in the front that they now knew was a map of the Glades. A thought came to her, and she slowly made her way to stand behind Digg.

"Pull up a map of the Glades"

Her tone must have held something because he turned to look at her and then did as she requested.

"Scooch." she commanded, and took her seat back when he vacated it. On the next screen she pulled up a USGS map of Starling City and focused in on the Glades as well.

A few quick keystrokes and she had the display showing her only the fault lines that ran through the area.

"If you were going to set off a device that could trigger seismic activity, where would you put it? I don't mean the building. I mean it's actual physical location."

Digg crowded in next to her, and she could see understanding cross his face. "I think I'd put it underground." he answered.

"Exactly." she swiped her fingers over the touchpad and overlaid the map of the glades with the geologic map of the fault lines. "Guess where the largest fault in the Glades runs?"

"Right under the old subway line." Digg said, and she zoomed in on the stretch of tunnel that cut right through the center of the Glades.

"What have you found?" Oliver's voice boomed across the space, and she spun in her chair to face him.

She couldn't read his expression and that scared her. His face was completely shuttered, and his body language screamed 'stay away!'.

"Felicity may have found something." Digg said

As she explained what she'd discovered he came to stand beside her.

"The device must be somewhere along the old subway line." she concluded, and Oliver stared at the screen hard.

"I know where it is." he said suddenly but before he could explain his phone rang.

"Now is not a good time." he practically growled to whoever was on the other end.

"What channel?" he barked, and she looked at Digg in confusion.

Then he was coming back to them, "Felicity, pull up the local news please." and she scrambled to do as he asked.

Moira Queen was on the screen, standing behind a podium filled with microphones. They watched in stunned silence as she accepted responsibility for her part in the Undertaking and called Malcolm Merlyn out publicly for being the mastermind behind the entire plan.

Felicity slid her hand into Oliver's where it hung limp by his side, but he didn't seem to notice.

When the press conference was done and the reporters began to speak on what they'd just heard she shut the feed off.

Oliver pulled away and stood with his back to them in front of the chest.

She rose to follow, but stopped before she got to him. "Oliver, I'm sorry." she said with a shaky voice.

"Don't be. She gave those people a chance." his tone was harsh and he flipped open the lid to the chest.

"I thought Merlyn broke your bow." Digg said and she whipped her head towards him in shock.

"I have another." Oliver stated and pulled out a simple black bow she'd never seen before.

God, she wanted to make this better for him. She wanted to take him away where family and friends didn't betray, and where life was simple, but that wasn't their reality.

Right then, the man who stood in front of her was mostly the Hood, and if she tried to approach him as anything but she'd be locked out.

"I was looking over the design schematics. It can be set for a timed detonation or be remote activated by a mobile transmitter." she explained as unemotionally as possible

"Something Merlyn could have on him." Oliver said

"Maybe if we get the transmitter we don't have to find the device." Digg suggested but Oliver was shaking his head.

"It's too big an if. I need you in the subway to find the device."

"So you can take on Merlyn yourself?" Digg almost scoffed, and she saw Oliver's jaw tighten.

"I have to." he ground out

"He'll kill you Oliver." Digg spat back and she could hardly keep standing as she watched Oliver.

"I know." he said slowly, but wouldn't meet her eye

Her knees buckled at his words, and if Digg hadn't caught her by the elbow and guided her to the chair she wasn't sure she wouldn't have ended up on the floor.

"You can't." she gasped out, all promises to stay detached had just been broken.

"He's beaten me twice and I have no idea how to stop him." Oliver continued like she hadn't even spoken.

She flew to her feet and stood toe to toe with him, forcing him to acknowledge her, "You're not giving up! You're not going to die!" she choked out, his image blurring before her. "You're going to take Digg with you this time, and he's going to cover your six or whatever it is they say in the military, and you are going to beat him. Do you understand me, Oliver Queen? You are not going to die." she repeated, her finger drilling into his chest as she spoke. "You are going to come back to m..." a sob cut her off and finally he reacted to her.

Oliver's hand reached out and grasped her behind the neck to tug her forward. She fell against him, and clung tight. "Okay," he said softly into her hair, "Okay." and she let out a shuddering breath of relief.

"She beat me to it." Digg said, coming up behind them, "I'm not going to let you do this by yourself. You're not alone. Not since you brought us into this. Besides, Army regulations. A soldier never lets a brother go into battle alone."

Felicity turned in Oliver's arms and watched as Digg held his hand out, there was only the slightest hesitation before Oliver clasped the hand offered him. "I'm all out of bows." he said

"It's ok, I've got my gun." Digg answered cockily.

She swiped at her wet face and turned back to Oliver, "Guess it's up to me to do the dismantling." she said with forced levity

The bow clattered to the ground as Oliver dropped it in order to grasp her upper arms and make her face him. "This area is ground zero, I want you out of here." she could see the change in his face, this wasn't the Hood any longer, this was Oliver again, and the struggle he was having right then was about to drag him under.

She gave him a tender smile and slowly raised a hand to brush across his cheek, "If you're not leaving, I'm not leaving. If I don't deactivate the device, who will?"

He held her gaze and then let his forehead drop to hers, "Please Felicity. I need you to be safe."

"If we don't stop this, no one will be. I knew what I was doing when I signed on." she said gently

"I can't...I feel like I'm losing everything right now, and..." he sounded desperate

"You're not going to lose me." she said with all the conviction she could summon.

"You're right, because you're not going into the subway." he stated, and before she could voice another protest he was pulling back and taking his phone out.

A few minutes later he'd convinced Detective Lance to track down the device in the subway with Felicity providing tech support over the phone.

"Oliver, I don't know." she said, unconvinced "This is a complicated machine. What if he can't explain it to me correctly, what if he doesn't understand what I'm telling him." her mind spun with the millions of ways this could go wrong.

"You'll just have to make him understand because you're not going down there." and there was no doubt that she wasn't going to change his mind.

Finally after having a silent battle of wills with him she nodded her consent.

"Head back to your place, or work, or even the mansion. You'll be safe there." Oliver ordered, as he stepped away to begin suiting up.

"I can't leave!" she protested, following after him "All my data is here. It would take too long to upload everything to another computer."

"We're in the middle of the Glades, you can't stay here!" he shot back over his shoulder

"I'll be ok. This building is solid concrete and steel. It's probably one of the safest places in the Glades." she hoped she sounded convincing. Oliver wasn't to know that a seismic event of the magnitude that device was capable of producing wouldn't care very much whether a building was made of steel or wood.

He paused and looked around, seemingly considering the very materials that surrounded them.

"You're sure." he asked, and she swallowed hard before she reassured him that she would be fine.

Too soon he and Digg were standing in front of her while she handed over earpieces. "Come back, okay, just...come back. Both of you." she could barely get the words out.

Digg dropped a brotherly kiss to her hair and was gone before she could respond. Oliver stood before her, the paint on his face doing nothing to mask his feelings.

"Stay safe. And don't hesitate to get out of here if it's the right thing to do." his voice was thick with emotion, and she could only nod.

He reached for her at the same moment she reached for him. They crashed together. His mouth fused on hers. It was desperate, and needy, and all she could think was that it could not be the last time she kissed him.

She pulled back reluctantly "Go," she ordered, and shut her eyes tight until she felt him pass by her.

This was what she had felt coming. This was the very very bad.