A/N: Alright, I'm happy to bring you the next chapter on time for a change! I hope you all enjoy it =).

As always, I can't post this chapter without thanking Maverick41 for the wonderful edits on this chapter.

Enjoy!


Her lungs burned with exertion, but she barely noticed the pain. Her mostly-healed ankle, too, started twinging, sending pangs of discomfort up her body with every step she took. However, stopping wasn't a choice. It never was, and never would be.

Oliver was dying.

Every second she wasted getting to Diggle and the herbs was another second the poison could had to work through Oliver's system until it consumed him completely. There was no time.

Finally, Felicity burst into camp, looking wildly around. "Digg," she screamed desperately, even as she ran to the shelter and started frantically searching for the packet where Oliver kept the herbs. "Where is it?" she sobbed under her breath, feeling the hot tears start to build up in her eyes.

"Felicity," Diggle raced in just then, his face a mask of concern. "What's going on? Where's Oliver?"

"The herbs," she ignored his questions and focused on Oliver's only chance at survival. "Where are they?"

It only took Diggle a couple of seconds to locate the precious packet and hand it to Felicity. "You need to calm down," he told her quietly, trying to soothe her. "You're going into shock."

She didn't hear him. The second the packet was safely cradled in her hands, she tried to edge past her friend and out of the shelter, but he blocked her way.

"You're gonna hurt yourself, Felicity," Diggle cautioned. "What's going on?"

His calm demeanor made her irrationally angry. "It's Oliver," she screamed, the angry tears trailing down her cheeks now. "He's dying."

Immediately, Digg tensed up, thoughts of comforting her forgotten. "Where?"

"The forest. By his favourite tree," she forced out. "Let me go!" Again, she tried to get past him and get to Oliver, but Digg still refused to let her past.

"I'll be faster." He pulled the herbs from her hands, despite her best efforts to keep her grip on them. Logically, she knew that he was right - he could run significantly faster than she could, and both of them knew the location of Oliver's favourite vantage point well. However, the storm of emotions swirling inside Felicity were trying to convince her that trusting someone else, even someone like Diggle, with Oliver's life was a bad idea.

It was her fault that he had fallen from the tree, her fault that he had swallowed the herbs, her fault that he was lying alone in the forest, slowly giving in to the effects of the poison.

She had to save him.

With the packet of herbs already in his possession, Diggle took off towards the spot she had indicated. Despite the complaints from her body, she followed, running a little more slowly than she had before as he fatigued muscles refused to function like she wanted.

She just hoped that she wasn't too late.

Heat. Pain. Burning.

These sensations were currently running throughout Oliver's body, giving him the impression that he was on fire, both inside and out.

It wasn't entirely unpleasant. In fact, he almost welcomed the fiery sensation - it felt like a penance for the many times he had been the cause of pain in other people's lives.

Felicity's face rose to his mind amidst the agony.

For a second, the sight of her soothed him - her easy smile, her sparkling eyes, her soft hair. But then, it all changed as he remembered that she was now dead, murdered in front of him by the shadows from his past.

The fire inside him intensified, burning up his soul as well as his flesh.

...

Diggle was already kneeling beside Oliver's still figure, seemingly checking for vital signs, when Felicity arrived, panting for breath and terrified that she was too late.

"He's burning up," Diggle mumbled, barely even acknowledging her arrival. "We have to get him to swallow some herbs."

Dropping to her knees beside Oliver, she forced his mouth open, trying not to notice how hot his skin was against her trembling hands.

Diggle dropped a fair amount of the dried herbs in and Felicity allowed Oliver to close his lips. "How do we make him swallow?" she asked, hardly even daring to breathe.

Diggle sighed sadly. "We can try rubbing his throat and hope that he manages to swallow without choking. I don't think the herbs should block his airway, but it is a risk."

"Do we have any alternatives?" she asked, even though she knew the answer before Diggle shook his head, confirming her suspicions.

Forcing herself not to mess up in her haste, she gently stroked Oliver's throat. When that wasn't producing results, she tried massaging it. Still nothing. "Please," she begged Oliver, her voice so quiet that she could barely hear her own words.

Finally, just as she was about to give up, he swallowed convulsively. Next to her, Diggle exhaled the breath that he had been holding.

"What now?" Felicity asked, looking to her friend for reassurance that everything was going to be okay.

His answer was grim. "We hope."

"But he's going to get better now, right?" she asked, desperation colouring her tone.

Diggle turned to her, and the fear in his eyes just served to make her feel even more anxious. "Oliver's a fighter, Felicity, he's been through worse…" He hesitated, then added, "But we're in the middle of nowhere with barely any medical supplies, so you need to be prepared-"

"No," she cut him off, unable to hear what he was trying to tell her. "They have to work." She knew that there was a fresh batch of tears pouring down her face now, but she made no attempt to wipe them away. It wouldn't do any good. "They're the magical herbs that somehow always cure everything."

She felt Diggle's arm settle around her shoulder and pull her against him comfortingly. "I don't want him to die either, Felicity. But the herbs can't fix everything."

She knew what Diggle was trying to do - prepare her for the worst possibility. However, she wasn't emotionally ready to even accept that there was a possibility that he could leave her.

"He's going to be fine," she insisted through her tears, trying to convince herself, but the words sounded hollow.

"The best we can do for him now is get him back to camp and get his temperature down."

There was a very small part of her that appreciated Diggle's level-headedness in this crisis, but there was a bigger part of her that resented his collected demeanor and wished that he would let out some of the negative emotions he must be feeling too.

"I'm going to run back to camp and get something we can use as a sled," he squeezed her shoulder reassuringly, "while you watch Oliver."

Felicity nodded silently, afraid that if she tried to talk, she would either burst into sobs or start yelling, and neither would help Oliver.

"I'll be back soon." Diggle stood up and ran off towards camp, leaving Felicity kneeling next to Oliver's still form, hoping against hope that he would somehow pull through this.

For the first couple minutes of her vigil, he didn't move and she felt the need to constantly check if he was breathing.

He then started to convulse violently. One second he was still, the next his back was arched into the air and his arms were flailing, one nearly hitting her before she sprang up and out of the way.

"Diggle," she screamed frantically into the forest, even though she knew that he couldn't possibly be close enough to hear her.

A low, anguished moaning came out of Oliver's throat as he continued thrashing.

"Oliver, Oliver," she babbled frantically, trying to get close to him without getting hit so that she could calm him down, "Stop. Please, stop." She managed to lay a hand on his chest. One of his arms grazed her shoulder with a stinging blow, but she barely noticed the sensation in her desperation to get Oliver to stop. Somehow she managed to end up with her arms wrapped around his torso and her head pressed to his chest, forcing him back down to the ground and easing his tension.

"Felicity," her name escaped from Oliver's lips in an anguished, haunting whisper, and then he collapsed under her and lay still.

He's dead.

Immediately, Felicity rejected the horrible thought when she felt Oliver's diaphragm move underneath her, his lungs filling with air.

Carefully, she moved off of him and rested on her heels on the ground, letting out a relieved breath to see that his breathing was significantly stronger than it had been before.

Now all she could do was wait for Diggle.

"No. This can't be happening." Felicity pushed her palms to her head and closed her eyes, feeling the tears start to well up again.

"I'm sorry, Felicity," Diggle reached out to touch her reassuringly, but she stepped away. "There's nothing more we can do."

She didn't register his words. Her brain was still trying to process what he had told her earlier, shortly after they had reached their camp: Oliver was likely in a coma. And Felicity had seen enough TV shows to know that people only woke up from comas in rare cases or if they were the romantic leads. In real life, it was nowhere near as likely.

"Felicity…" Diggle tried again.

"Just…" Felicity struggled not to lash out at her friend, working hard to keep her tense voice quiet. "Just give me some time. With Oliver. Alone."

"I care about him, too, Felicity," Diggle added softly, but she could tell that he wasn't upset at her. "Call me if anything changes." He walked off - Felicity didn't pay attention to where.

Oliver was lying on the cot inside the shelter, a damp cloth on his forehead. They had managed to bring his temperature down by dabbing him with cool water.

Felicity pulled up a crate next to him and sat on it. It felt natural to slip her hand in his - she didn't realize she had done it.

"Please don't do this," she whispered. "Please don't leave me. I mean, I know you don't want to talk about that kiss, but I think dying to avoid that conversation might be a little extreme." She chuckled sadly through the tears that were starting to stream down her cheeks. Somewhere, she had heard that talking to people in comas helped them somehow; they could hear, supposedly.

"I'm serious, though, Oliver," she continued. "Live, for me." Biting her lip, she admitted, "I've never been kissed like that before. Live so we can do it again. But mostly," she squeezed his hand and tried to speak around the lump in her throat, "live because I love you. I mean, we both do," she tried to correct herself, realizing that if he did wake up, she would have a lot of explaining to do. "Me and Diggle. As friends, not some really creepy love triangle." She closed her eyes, frustrated with her big mouth. "And now is the time where you'd smile at me and say my name. I've never missed hearing that so much."

With her free hand, she wiped the tears from her cheeks "When you wake up, we're going to pretend that this whole conversation didn't happen, okay?"
She lost track of time, alternating between telling Oliver funny stories and begging him to come back to her.

Diggle finally returned to find her head resting on Oliver's chest, her eyes closed and her breathing even. Her hand was still resting in Oliver's as she slept. He smiled sadly and turned to leave, deciding not to disturb them.


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