Disclaimer: I own nothing of Arrow or it's characters.

Chapter 9: Feelings tend to complicate things

4 months ago…

Dune and Children of Dune created a great mantra. "Fear is the mind killer" however I wasn't letting it pass through me. I was cowering down at its feet begging for mercy. The last two weeks had been perfect. Rose had been out of town on ARGUS business so our weekly Wednesday meetings hadn't been occurring. My QC job was going great, the mainframe overall had been finished and implemented with no clichés or mistakes in site. Kate and I were already becoming lifelong friends and then there was Oliver. He was making every morning and every evening perfect. Over the past two weeks I had been meeting Oliver at Luca's for coffee before work. We would then spend 45 minutes talking about ourselves, sharing past stories of lost loves, embarrassing moments, and talking about the people who mattered most to us. I told him more about growing up in Vegas; and more about my mother the cocktail waitress who was smarter than she seemed. I still was avoiding talking about Cooper and my goth phase; I didn't want him looking at me with anything other than the amused and bewildered expression that I often seemed to cause. He in turn told me more about his past frat boy days, his relationship with Tommy and of course his eternal bright spot Thea. He was hesitant with subjects that dealt with his 5 years away and become tense whenever anything Lance related came up. In short we were just enjoying each other's company and I wasn't getting anything useful for ARGUS.

It was about 2 in the afternoon when Kate's brown hair came into my line of vision. She had popped in to say hi and to get the dirt on my mornings and evenings with Oliver. "Alright so spill anything new last night or this morning?" She had fully come into my office at this point and was proceeding to sit down in the chair positioned in front of the desk. With my fingers flying across the keyboard and without looking up from the screen I replied "Kate we talk, we exchange stories, and we're friends that's it." I could hear her eyes roll and I could sense her next sentence before she had even uttered the words. "Felicity you and I are friends. We exchanged stories too. However you and I don't hold hands with our fingers laced together, we don't exchange forehead and cheek kisses. You also don't babble about my eyes or how my lips move when you're in my presence. You my dear friend want to have a relationship with him; face it you have feelings for Oliver Queen." She paused waiting for her statement to sink in. Once I stopped typing and actually looked toward her with a slightly fearful look in my eyes she finished. "Felicity you have feelings for him and based on how he's acting he has them for you as well." I slumped slightly in my chair and rested my head in my hands. With a defeated sigh I mumbled "I know, I've known for weeks. I just have no idea what to do about it." Kate's face melted into concern as she leaned towards me and taking both of my hands in hers she forced me to look up. "Felicity just tell him how you feel about him. It's easy you just have to tell him and then let him decide how he feels about you." I nodded and still holding her hands said "Thank you Kate. I'll consider it." With that she released my hands and left my office and me with another rather large problem. She was right I did have feelings for Oliver Queen and I knew I wasn't supposed to.

With a determined pace I waltzed into Rose's "cover" office and slammed the case file on her desk. I had my eyes set with a determined look and I was willing to stand my ground this time. Still slightly out of breath from practically running up the 20 flights of stairs I finally spoke my tone clear leaving no room for misinterpretation. "Rose I'm done, I can't do this to him. I thought I could, I thought this was going to be easy. I never expected to have feelings for him and I never thought that he actually might return them." Rose had remained still and frozen in place throughout my little outburst. She slowly picked the file up off her desk and walked towards me her stare softened and she placed her hand lightly atop my shoulder. "Felicity take a deep breath, sit down, and continue to breathe." I did as she instructed I sat down and just kept attempting to control my respirations that were still coming at a rather accelerated rate. Taking the seat beside and once more grasping my right shoulder to help ease my breathing she just waited patiently for me to be ready for what she had to say. "I didn't know you had this kind of compassion in you Rose." She slightly smiled before responding "Felicity I'm a mother of three I've had to calm them down from time to time." I slightly shuddered at the thought of Rose being a mother which she of course picked up and smiled once again. "Yes my dear I'm a mother. I do have another life outside of my job as should you." I looked up at that statement with confusion covering my exhausted face. "What do you mean I should have a life? How can I every person I meet only gets the lies that I have to tell, they never actually get to see the real me." The last statement came out sadly and softly. "Felicity just talk to me tell me what happened and we'll proceed from there."

So I did I told her about getting the phone number, how he called me that very same night, I even told her about the forehead kisses and my nervous babbles. I told her how my stomach would jump and turn whenever he so much as smiled in my direction. Explaining how my heart started to race in anticipation of the moment that his skin was once again in contact with mine. I even told her how my knees started to buckle and how my legs began to sway when I felt his soft lips touch my soft skin. Finally I told her when I realized that I was starting to feel something for him. Explaining about Kate and how she was the one that made it clear that my feelings might be more than one sided was never racking. It took me 45 minutes to unburden my soul and it took Rose all of 10 minutes to cause my soul to feel heavy once more.

"Felicity this is a good development. You have made more progress with him in the past month than most of us thought you'd make in 6 months. We are very happy with this new development." She was still seated beside me but the warm mothering gestures from before were long gone and now had been replaced with the Rose I had met before. I looked her over with shock and disgust. "Rose you can't be serious I can't keep doing this to someone that I care about. I can't keep lying to him and more importantly I don't want to. He's been hurt enough I don't want to be another person in his life that causes him pain." Rose just tapped her fingers against the side of the chair and breathed in deeply before explaining in no uncertain terms that I really didn't have a choice. "Felicity let me be clear. You have no choice in this, if he truly does care for you than you're already half way in. Your new tactic is going to involve using his feelings towards you to make him join us. If he really does care for you than he should be more than willing to join us in order to protect you." I was shocked and mad as hell. " Rose I'm not doing that. I'm not going to play upon his feelings or lack of feelings for me in order to make him join you. You might be a heartless bitch but I'm not."

Rose stood up leaving me still seated in the chair and went back around to her desk and pulled out another file. This one was thicker and had my name on it. She placed the file on her desk and proceeded. "Yes you will do this and you will succeed because if not than this file will be released and every government agency in the world will know about your involvement with Cooper and the incident at MIT. You'll go to jail Ms. Smoak and I have a feeling that his fate could very easily become yours. So decide to help us or die in prison the choice is yours." I resisted at first with my hands now gripping the sides of the chair that I still was seated in. With venom in my voice and ice in my stare I fought back "I can get the information well before you release it I can save my own skin that threat means nothing." She smiled a cold and very cruel smile and replied "Yes you could clear your name but you are one person we are many. You are not the only person in the world with your skill set we employee hundreds. Also remember Oliver; if you don't help us we'll find someone far less pretty and kind who will." Realizing that she was going to get her way I agreed and silently began to form another plan. I was going to get out of this by getting Oliver to trust me. I was going to go after Oliver as the Hood.