A/N: This is for my very kind Guest Reader Jen, who I can't reply to personally even though she leaves lovely and encouraging reviews. I hope you enjoy this final expanded Felicity POV from "Heir to the Demon" (2.13) that picks up where the previous chapter leaves off. I think (I'm almost positive) this will be the last one in this series. Felicity needed to process some things she's learned, and I'm really busy. Besides, I've said everything I want to say until we get a new episode. See y'all next week!


Your Eyes Only – Part Four

I used to think that loving someone meant the end of pain and suffering. If only you were lucky enough to fall in love and be loved by that person in return, everything would somehow work out for the best because, well, as they always say, love conquers all. The end and happily ever after and all that. But they aren't trustworthy, and they don't know what they're talking about. Being with Oliver has taught me love is not the end of anything. It's only the beginning.

I expected tonight to be different, but as usual, as soon as Oliver got us positioned the way he likes in bed, he immediately fell into exhausted sleep. Oliver always sleeps on his side, his arm cushioning his head on top of the pillow as if he can't quite get reacquainted with the notion of simple comforts like pillows. He curls around me, his body conforming to the shape of mine, whether I'm spooned against his chest or lying next to him on my back or on my side facing him. It doesn't matter how I lay, he presses as much of his skin against mine as he can, and before I even have time to consider closing my eyes, he's out, his breath warm and moist on my neck or my shoulder or my cheek.

Wrapped around me, wearing only the moonlight filtering in through the curtains, Oliver sleeps as if he hasn't slept in years.

I honestly intended, all those hours ago when I made motivational promises after Mrs. Queen's press conference, for us to enjoy a relaxing evening. But after Sarah came to the lair, I felt like we really shouldn't just leave her. Faking some semblance of normal even though our merry band of misfits is anything but that seemed like the only thing to do despite promises made to Oliver. So we had dinner, the five of us. It was strained, unspoken tension and unasked questions roiling under the surface, but Oliver kept everyone laughing at Big Belly Burger with stories of assorted childhood pranks and bad-boy antics. He was charming and self-deprecating and chatted and smiled like he didn't notice Sarah wouldn't sit with her back to the door or windows or Roy openly staring at him or the way Thea's eyes kept darting over to Sarah. I intentionally didn't look at Thea because I didn't trust myself to not spill the beans, but I couldn't stop thinking, "She's the only one who doesn't know! Everyone else is in on it except her! We are all lying shits!"

Oliver covered the awkwardness without seeming to dominate the discussion, all the while teasing my leg with his toe and steadily eating his way through an obscene amount of ground beef and drinking about a gallon of water. I thought, not for the first time, how truly remarkable he is. What he said earlier, about how not dying is the easy part, really makes sense because Oliver regularly performs not-so-minor-miracles when he plays his assorted roles to such perfection.

I wanted the rest of our night to be uneventful. After everything, I wanted him to drop the facade and just be Oliver, but as soon as he did, as soon as it was quiet and he could take a breath and just be, whatever that was happened in the bathtub. PTSD episode, probably. I should have taken more psychology at MIT instead of scoffing at soft sciences and loading up my schedule with "real" coursework. I had no idea asking about Thea would prompt him into telling me about his dad. And then there were those few minutes right before we turned out the light, when I'd said how pretty his feet are because it's true, and he got this panicked look on his face and started manically wiggling his toes, as if he doubted they were still attached to his feet.

I can only assume something happened. Something terrible he can't or won't tell me. But I know, I know without him saying a word, that somewhere along the way, during those five long years he was gone, Oliver worried about not having toes to wiggle. I can't imagine how or why that would be, what possibly could have happened to his feet to make him think he wouldn't have his toes, but the look on his face made that fact abundantly clear. And as I realized what he was thinking, I must've made a noise or a face, and then he must have realized he was giving too much away, because I watched as he slipped on his pleasant Oliver-mask because he doesn't want me to worry about him.

As if my not worrying were a viable option at this point. Earth to Oliver: it hasn't been for quite some time, long before you took up residence in my bed.

I wish he'd stop working so hard to protect me. Against serial killers and lunatic drug lords and science-fiction sounding man-made natural disasters? Yes and please to the rescuing in those situations. Absolutely. But I don't want him to feel like he has to protect me from him. I want him to feel safe with me. I want him to be honest with me, even if that means I can't sleep because I just learned he can't even take his toes for granted. There are things I assume will always be here, like gravity and tetanus shots. Oliver doesn't.

Oliver can't assume anything will always be here.

My arm is tingling with painful pins-and-needles from the way I'm laying on it, so I carefully extract myself from Oliver's heavy limbs and shift over in the bed. I've learned from experience that moving away from him while he's sleeping requires delicate choreography. It has to be fast, or he'll unconsciously pull me even closer to him and hold on even more tightly. And I have to leave part of me touching him or he'll wake up in a panic and, more likely than not, not be able to go back to sleep.

His sleeping face creases with worry when I move, and he clenches his jaw until I hear his back molars grinding, but I press my bare leg against his and watch, holding my breath, until once more he relaxes. His jaw pops in relief after the strain and his breathing settles into its heavy, even rhythm.

The first time I met Oliver, when he waltzed into the IT Department like he owned the place, and let's be honest, he kind of did, I saw the same thing most people see: this ridiculously good looking guy with amazing arms and shockingly blue eyes. I will admit I had a bit of a fan-girl moment, until he tried to convince me of the whole my-coffee-shop-is-in-a-bad-neighborhood thing, which was just about the lamest, least unbelievable cover story ever. But he grinned at me, like he was silently saying, 'Yeah, we both know I'm lying badly, but you're going to let me get away with it and help me anyway because I'm cute.' And I thought to myself, 'He's unworldly cute, and he just came back from the dead. The least you can do is look at his laptop, if it is his laptop, even if it is full of super-creepy bullet holes.'

Now that I think about it, from the very beginning, we said an awful lot to each other without saying anything at all.

But I missed it. I missed the real him, and I have a hard time forgiving myself for being so clueless. It's not arrogant to admit that I'm better than most people. It sounds prideful, maybe it even is, but it's also the truth. I am way above average in just about every facet of my life. Unless, of course, you ask my mother. But that first day at Queen Consolidated, I acted like everyone else. I acted normally, or as close to normal as anyone can be when a hot billionaire waltzes back from the dead and into your office, and I had an open-mouth-insert-foot ramble about his father drowning and how Oliver was rightfully Mr. Queen, and I never thought twice about it until just now even though I know him as well as anyone and have been working with him for the past year.

I never thought, not that day nor any day since, that maybe the late Mr. Queen didn't drown. I never thought that he killed himself to save Oliver and what a terrible truth that must be to carry. I didn't think Oliver sat in a life raft at open sea with his dead father. He drifted in a tiny little blow-up boat better suited for a swimming pool than the ocean for days and nights, wet and cold and hungry. He was alone at sea with his dead father long enough for the body to start decomposing. It never occurred to me to wonder if maybe Oliver was the one who buried Mr. Queen, and how else would he dig a grave on an uninhabited island except with his bare hands? It's not like there was a shovel and a pile of food and medicine waiting to greet him. All that was waiting on Lian Yu was years of torment and torture and eventually solitude.

And this is just one story about things people really don't want to know about. He must have thousands more. Every scar is a story. Every tattoo. All the injuries that healed on the outside but not the on the inside, like his feet. Like why he can't rest his head on a pillow or sleep unless he's holding me.

Oliver has more untold stories than known ones.

He mumbles something unintelligible in his sleep. His eyebrows furrow and he starts to twitch, his closed eyelids flickering as he fights an enemy only he can see.

"Shhh," I soothe. I shift closer to him and gently stroke his hair. "You can sleep," I whisper, hoping that where ever he is, whatever it is he's seeing, he'll find a way to hear me and know he's not alone. I kiss his forehead. "Sleep, Oliver. Go back to sleep."

His face relaxes and he looks, again, like the hunk of a man I first met. His beautiful lips pout, begging to be kissed, and I can't help but remember a picture I found online, some charity event years ago, before Thea was born and right before Mrs. Merlyn was killed. Mr. and Mrs. Queen and Mr. and Mrs. Merlyn, all of them, including the photographer, focused on two little boys in the foreground. Tommy and Oliver are little men in their blazers and bow ties. Tommy is nervously smiling, his gaze distant and dazzled by what I assume is a large crowd. But Oliver stares right at the camera. Fearless. Already confident of his many charms and his place in the world. That little boy with the dimple and pouty lips who will kiss so many women when he grows up doesn't know that his best friend will be his sister's brother. He doesn't know his mother will lie, or that his father will be killed, or that he will be lost and have to transform in order to rise from the dead.

And I didn't know, the day Oliver Queen walked into the IT Department, that I would love him. I couldn't see him. I was dazzled and didn't see past those kissable lips and blazing blue eyes. I only saw charm and cockiness and fantasy sex-on-a-stick. But I see him now. Oliver only allows my eyes to witness how fragile he is, how hard he has to work to keep smiling, how he doesn't know how to stop punishing himself.

Loving Oliver is not a simple, tidy end. It's only the beginning.