A/N: Hiiiii. My apologies, as always, for another long wait between updates. And also my apologies that this one's kinda on the shorter side, and I did cut it off sooner than I'd originally planned, because I figured it was better not to delay this any longer, since it's already been a month and a half and I was starting to feel really bad about it.

That said, I hope you enjoy.

XXI. Reflections

She liked undercover work.

Dressing up for the role, doing a little prep work, playing it out; it was fun, in a way that her partners never seemed to appreciate.

Going undercover was fun.

Up until the moment something inevitably went off-script.

"Good morning, Ms. Smoak."

She'd had it all planned out. The perfect a-little-more-on-the-sober-side outfit, great practiced lines that hit the perfect balance between a disgruntled friend of a fallen-from-grace CEO and a career-driven woman, and a variety of angles thought of and prepared for depending on where the conversation went. Everything she could possibly need for when she got summoned to Isabel's new office.

Except the devil was currently in her office.

Felicity froze at the door, and with all her preparation and contingency plans, the best she could come up with was, "Um, what are you doing here?"

Isabel raised an eyebrow. "I didn't get a chance to speak with you yesterday," she said. "About the changes in the company."

Felicity hummed dryly as she stepped up to her desk, dropping her bag with a little more force than she'd intended; playing the disgruntled friend of a fallen-from-grace CEO was definitely not going to be the hard part of this. "What I meant was, what are you doing here?" She gestured around them, lowering herself into her chair. "Don't you have an office of your own you can call me up to?"

"I'm always the one coming down here."

"But you're the CEO now."

Isabel shrugged. "Mr. Queen used to come down here all the time."

Felicity pursed her lips. "We were friends."

"Ah." Isabel nodded. "And we're not." She leaned a little forward, folding her hands in her lap. "Your closeness with Mr. Queen is actually one of the reasons I wanted a face-to-face – which I'm sure you knew," she said. "Because you were friends, and because I imagine you still are, I have to ask if you want to keep your place here, now that he's gone, especially considering the…circumstances under which he left."

Considering the circumstances under which he left, what she wanted was to shove her letter opener right through Isabel's eye socket but hey, that wasn't an option here. "You think I'd leave my job just because I don't like my boss?" she asked. "Because, I didn't like my 'supervisor' at IT either, and I soldiered on."

"You still don't like me, that's alright," Isabel said. "But I am glad to hear that you plan to stay with the company."

Felicity shrugged. "I like my job."

"And you're good at it," Isabel added, "which is why I would like for you and me to work as closely as you and Mr. Queen did, on projects for your department. I have some great plans for this company, Ms. Smoak, and your contributions would be a big part of that."

Felicity took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then nodded. "I guess I can soldier on through that, too."

She was used to the little half-upturned tick at the corner of Isabel's mouth, like she might break out into a grin at any second, as a constant in their little chats; so, it came as something of a first when it turned down at the corners instead.

"I don't require you to like me," she said, "or to prefer my directives to Mr. Queen's, but I am very good at my job too, Ms. Smoak, and I am your boss. So, I do require that you respect me as such."

Felicity chewed on her tongue for a moment. "Got it."

"Good." Isabel nodded. "I have a lot of things to put in order today, but I have a meeting of all the departments scheduled for tomorrow. I'll leave the details with your assistant." She rose to her feet. "And I would like for you and I to have a private meeting afterwards, to discuss proposals for your department in particular."

"I already discussed those with Oliver."

"And I'd like for you to discuss them with me," Isabel insisted.

"Okay," Felicity agreed. "I'll put it all together for tomorrow."

"Thank you, Ms. Smoak."

"Did you sleep down here?"

Oliver dropped down from the salmon ladder, grabbing a towel to wipe himself down. "Well, I spent the night down here," he said, sparing the makeshift cot on the mats he'd made for himself, and hadn't slept in, a sidelong glance. He'd tried to get some sleep, even managed to push halfway through his breathing techniques, but it had been too quiet, and too dark even with the overhead lights, and so he'd spent most of the night working out instead, to jolt himself awake whenever he felt drowsy.

Diggle gave him a hum of understanding. "So how about you come over to my place tonight, and give it another go?"

"Digg – "

"Oliver," he interrupted, "I get it. I've been there, man. After my second tour, I spent a week on maybe four hours of sleep." He shrugged. "It helped to crash at Lyla's, you know, with someone who knew what it was like, who could talk me down if I woke up screaming."

Oliver sighed. "Thanks, John."

That earned him a smile from his partner. "It's no big deal," he dismissed the gratitude, though Oliver was sure John knew exactly how much it meant to him to be given the offer. "So," he went on, making his way to computers, where Oliver had begun pulling up all of the research they had on both Isabel and Phobos, "I'm guessing this meeting you called is about taking down our dear Ms. Rochev?"

"Actually, the meeting was Felicity's idea," Oliver said, and though Diggle didn't need any additional information, he still found himself adding, "I was at her place last night."

That got Diggle's attention. He looked over his shoulder, prompting, "And?"

And he'd played a thousand movies in his head, about how he could trail his mouth along her palm, maybe run his teeth along it just so, then follow the drumming of her pulse along her wrist, and maybe he could lean in without her pulling away, because in all the movies in his head, things were just a little bit different.

But he wasn't going to say any of that. What John got to hear instead was, "She's pretty good at talking me down when I go off the deep end, too."

Diggle pursed his lips, then commented, "You still ended up here, though."

Which had been the plan. Even if Felicity had offered to let him stay the night, in the end. "When I first came back, I woke up from a nightmare, and nearly killed my own mother, Digg," he said quietly, shaking his head. "It's not a risk I'd take with Felicity."

"Yeah," Diggle agreed, giving him a onceover before he turned around and leaned against the desk. "Oliver, do you wanna talk about this?" he asked. "You and Felicity, I mean?"

"What? No…"

John didn't look like he believed him. "You know where I stand on the idea," he said, "but if you need to talk about it…"

Right.

Oliver busied himself with getting a shirt, turning his back to Diggle as he dug through the bag.

He didn't need to talk about it. Didn't particularly want to, either. But it was always there, at the back of his mind or halfway up his throat, and he probably should just get it out.

"It'd be one thing if it was just one-sided, if it was just me," he began, slipping the shirt over his head. "Maybe that would make it easier, I don't know, but it's…it's not just me, and if things were a little different, then we'd – " He sighed. "I can't stop thinking about it," he admitted, as quietly as he could. "About her."

"So, it does hurt."

"Yeah, well…it's not the greatest feeling," he muttered.

John didn't say anything back for a moment, and though he couldn't see him, Oliver imagined he was nodding in understanding. "Yeah, I get it," he eventually voiced the sentiment. "I lived through a few years of that. And it's…probably not going to get easier."

He didn't think it would, either.

"Look, Oliver, I'd tell you to find a way to figure out how to make it work," Diggle went on, "because I do want you to be happy, but when it comes to this – you and Felicity – I'm always gonna side with her, with what she wants."

"I know that, John."

"Yeah," Diggle said quietly, "but I don't like seeing you hurt like this, either. You should know that, too."

Oliver couldn't help but smile at that. It was still a little foreign, sometimes, to hear people say they cared for him, about what he felt; he loved them a little more each time they did, though.

"And you know, maybe," Diggle went on, "you and Felicity should have another talk about this."

He blew out a breath, turning around. "And say what, Digg?"

"I don't know." John shrugged. "But you've been doing this thing for months now, and I'm not even sure about all that's happened here" – he raised his eyebrows pointedly there, and Oliver looked away – "but dangling in the in-between isn't going be good for either of you. So, maybe you should figure out a way to let it go."

Well, that…would be difficult. "The thing is, John," he whispered, "I don't want to let it go."

Diggle said nothing at that, only bobbing his head up and down just slightly, before trailing his eyes up to the stairs; Oliver followed suit, just as the door beeped and Sara came into sight, Felicity in tow.

She paused at the bottom, giving him a smile. "Hey," she said, rubbing her lips together.

"Hey," he echoed, and maybe he'd put just a little too much feeling into it, because it sounded too low and heavy even to his own ears, and Sara was giving him a look; Felicity still smiled wider though, and he thought that he really, really didn't want to let her go.

"Well, now that we're all here," Diggle spoke up, somewhat loudly, "how about we get down to business?"

Oliver cleared his throa; Felicity jumped a little.

"Right, okay," she muttered as she dashed right for her computers, dropping her bag on the desk, only to pause with her hands in midair. "This is the part where I'd start pulling up everything we have on the bad guys, but it's all already here."

"I did that," Oliver said, shrugging when she looked over to him. "Figured that'd make it easier."

"It does, actually." She gave him another bright smile as she settled into her chair, cracked her knuckles, then proceeded to take it from the top, ticking off all the general information they had about both Phobos and Isabel Rochev.

While she talked, Sara came up next to him, laying a hand on his arm. "You okay?" she asked under her breath, quietly enough not to disrupt Felicity.

He nodded, to which she gave his arm a light squeeze. "Good," she mouthed, before turning her attention back to their debriefing.

" – so what we basically have here is a criminal mastermind, a very dangerous drug, and no way to connect the two."

"You said you'd try to get some intel from her today," Oliver piped in, and did his best not to think about how much he never wanted Felicity in the same room as Isabel Rochev ever again. "How did that go?"

She spun her chair to face him, wearing the most adorable disgruntled pout he'd ever seen on anyone. "I am not above admitting that I may not be cut out for this spy stuff," she said, sighing. "I mean, I don't know how to get information out of people with words, you know? I just" – she gestured to the equipment over her shoulder – "dig up all the digital footprints of their misdeeds, I don't…know how to talk it out of them – "

"Felicity," Oliver halted her, shaking his head. "You don't have to do it."

Her responding expression was both grateful and annoyed in equal measure. "I appreciate that," she told him, "but I also know what you're doing." And she didn't seem to be buying the confused look he put on either, because she added, "This is you trying to be sneaky about keeping me from ever talking to her ever again."

She did have him there.

"Well hey, maybe he can give you some pointers on manipulating something out of her," Diggle suggested.

Felicity scrunched her nose. "I'm not sure I want to take advice on lying from the guy who 'ran out of sports bottles' – no offense, Oliver."

"Oh yeah," Diggle let out, then chuckled to himself, while Oliver rolled his eyes.

"I wasn't exactly at the top of my game that time," he defended.

"Were you ever?" Diggle deadpanned, just as Sara asked, "'Top of your game' being a latte that put bullet holes in a laptop?"

Felicity blinked at that, then looked over to him, and pretty soon, she was grinning as widely as he had ever seen her.

He grinned back. "The bullet holes happened after the latte."

"Yeah," she said warmly, voice growing softer, "his coffee shop's in a bad neighborhood."

God, he loved her.

"So, that's a no-go, then," Diggle said.

"Well, I could tell you about some of my old methods," Sara suggested, "but I wasn't exactly trained in…gentle persuasion."

Felicity laughed. "What are you talking about, kidnapping me from a parking lot to get Green Arrow to your tower was totally gentle persuasion."

"Compared to some of Green Arrow's methods, it really was," Diggle agreed.

"But hey, non-gentle gentle persuasion is a good thing in our line of business."

"It's not the way to go when it comes to your Isabel problem, though."

"Definitely not. We need…subtlety."

"Well, none of us here are exactly subtle but – hey, man, you okay?"

"Oliver?"

He started, blinking at the spot just over Felicity's shoulder he'd been staring at; when he looked around, it was to his partners contemplating him with varying degrees of concern. "Um, I – " He cleared his throat. "I got…uh, caught up in thinking about something, so um – Isabel, maybe we should leave the spying for later, and just" – he blew out a breath – "focus on the bigger picture, and…all that."

There was beat where they all just stood still, and he was pretty sure that he caught a look between Diggle and Sara, too, before Felicity broke the silence.

"Okay," she said, "let's do that. So" – she clasped her hands – "I was thinking, big-picture-wise, maybe we've been approaching this all wrong."

"How so?" Diggle asked.

"Well, we've been keeping the Phobos thing in-house, so to speak, right?" She waited for all of them to nod before proceeding. "We were handling everything ourselves, didn't let Detective Lance about it, so what if we do tell him now? Because" – she swept her hand towards the screens – "I've got chemical composition, and logs, and client ledgers here, so if the PD has this, when we get Isabel…"

"They have something substantial to connect her to," Sara said, nodding along. "And if it's out in the public," she added, "then you also get your credibility back, Ollie."

"Right," he agreed, "but this is assuming that we're going to catch Isabel with the drug." He shook his head. "That's not going to be easy."

"Obviously, because I would've found it digging through her stuff otherwise and we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place," Felicity grumbled, "but, it just means we're gonna have to dig deeper. She's keeping it somewhere. We just have to find it."

"Suppose we do," he allowed, "she could still get out on technicality. Because all this stuff, you hacked it off Haze's computer. It's not exactly admissible."

She frowned, chewed on her lip, then suddenly lit up. "It is if the PD get it themselves."

"What?"

"If we give them an anonymous tip," she said, "then they can go digging through Haze's stuff and get all this on their own, and I know they have at least one competent techie on their payroll because he tracked me – which also made me end up in Detective Lance's interrogation room, and God, that was terrifying – and hey, I can even reprogram everything for easier access, but like not too easy, and boom, admissible!"

She looked so happy with her idea, practically beaming, and he had to snap himself out of the bright-hot warmth that spread right through him; he got distracted by her so easily.

"They'd still need a warrant to go snooping," Diggle commented. "Since dead men still have rights and all that. Think we'd get one on just an anonymous tip?"

"If a respected assistant DA pulls some strings," Sara spoke up, "we just might."

"Laurel?" Oliver let out, thrown by the look of confidence on Sara's face. "You think she'll help Green Arrow?"

Sara's mouth ticked at the corner. "She called me yesterday, invited me to lunch – just like that. And, I don't know, but we talked, some of it was about you and I just…" Her smile slipped there, growing sadder. "I wasn't there, you know? For her. I wasn't there when all this bad stuff happened to her, but…it's about Tommy, right? So much of this is about Tommy, and – "

"And me not saving him," Oliver whispered.

"Right." Sara nodded. "But you did save – well, you." She shrugged. "Green Arrow saved you, and that…that means something to her. It means a lot. So I think she will help you."

"That settles it, then," Felicity concluded happily. "We'll tip off Detective Lance and he'll go to Laurel for help with the warrant."

"We still gotta connect Isabel to it," Diggle pointed out. "And when we do, it's going to be another QC CEO in another public scandal. Think the company will take that hit?"

Oliver frowned. "What are you saying, John?"

"I'm saying, we should think about how the company – your company – fits into this plan. You want it back, right? But it's not going to mean much if it also falls into complete ruin in the process."

Isabel's voice was right in his ear again, telling him he didn't know how to fight for the company.

Whether that was true or not, what he did know, was how to delegate to more capable hands.

And as it turned out, so did Felicity. "I think this is a job for your mother, actually," she said. "If anyone's going to figure out a way to keep the company afloat while its – I-don't-even-know-which-CEO is sinking, it's your mother." She narrowed her eyes there, like she was considering something else, but when she spoke nothing further, he took that to mean that was all there was to her proposal.

And he agreed with it. "That's…exactly what we should do."

"Of course," he added, "that means we'll have to let her in on the plan. Sort of."

"We do have a little helper your mother knows about," Felicity said.

"Exactly." He nodded. "Besides, we probably should tell him, too."

"Right, so we tell him, he tells your mother – or all of you Queens, that'd be the logical thing to do if you weren't also part of 'we'…you know?"

That was a good point.

"So, I'll tell him, and then he'll" – he frowned – "tell me."

Next to him, Sara snickered.

"Aha, so to sum it up," Felicity concluded, clearly biting back a smile of her own, "you'll have Roy tell you your own plan, just so your mother could hear your plan, which you need her for, but can't tell her yourself, so you'll have to sit through Roy saying it back at you." She pursed her lips. "Can I please be there when it happens?"

He shook his head, smiling all the while.

Sara needing to leave, she could believe, what with all the mentions of another lunch with her sister being tossed around; she didn't go into details, but Felicity had seen her hopeful smile and even the slight tears in her eyes, and she, for one, could not be happier that her relationship with Laurel was showing the first real sign of getting mended.

Diggle's excuse for leaving, however, was a little flimsier, because she knew for a fact that Carly was working a shift at the moment and would not be available for romantic shenanigans for at least another three hours – the pointed look he'd thrown Oliver's way over his shoulder hadn't been subtle, either.

Oliver, for his part, was just standing there, hands in pockets, and staring at glass case housing his suit.

He was going on minute twenty, by her estimate.

She put the finishing touches on the outline of the firewall she'd be substituting Haze's nearly-impenetrable one with – just doing her civic duty, making an SCPD's techie's life easier down the road – before she made her way over to Oliver.

He'd sensed her approaching, of course, though he said nothing for a while. She stepped up next to him, breathing in deeply as she let her eyes go over the suit, too. It calmed her, all the green, patched-up leather; it was safety, and adventure, and her own chance at being a hero.

"The hood was Shado's."

She snapped her eyes over to him, though his were still locked straight ahead. It was still a little disconcerting, whenever he told her things, about himself, about his past, without her asking, without the situation calling for it; just because he wanted to.

"Shado's?"

He hummed softly. "The first time I saw it, it was on her father, when he was saving my life" he said. "His name was Yao Fei."

"Your friend's father, the one Edward Fyers killed," she let out. "Was that him?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "And after he died, Shado wore the hood."

"And now you're wearing it."

"I am who I am because of her. She made me." He nearly whispered it, like it was sacred, like it would take away from the reverence if he spoke any louder. "She…put a bow in my hands and taught me how to be an archer. And when I fight, I fight the way she did. She made me who I am."

"And, uh…and Slade?" Felicity asked.

Oliver blew out a breath. "I wouldn't be who I am without him, either. He taught me a lot, too."

"Right, but – " She swallowed. "This hood, you wear it to honor Shado, right? And her father?" When he nodded, she added, "So, what about Slade?"

His eyes slipped down, then to her, and she knew she wasn't going to like what she heard next. "Back on Lian Yu," he said, "there's…a mask, on the beach, with an arrow through its eye."

"Yeah, I saw it," she whispered.

He looked over her face, drawing a quick, quiet breath, before his eyes fell down to somewhere around her shoulder. "Slade was Australian Intelligence, and that mask – it was his, it was what wore on his missions, to conceal his identity. The mask was his."

"So why – why is there an arrow through its eye?"

"Because that's…how I killed him."

She didn't know when she'd brought her arms up around herself, but she could feel her fingers digging into the flesh now. "You killed him?"

"I, uh – it was after, after Shado died, Slade came back for me, to get me away from…um, the people who had me…" His words were coming out chocked, and almost too quiet for her to hear; just a sting of fragile little sounds that were bringing tears to her eyes. "She died trying to get me away from them, and Slade, he came back for me. He took me back to the plane, the fuselage, but then he realized I'd – " He gulped. "That I'd already given them my allegiance, that I'd betrayed him and Shado, and – we fought, and I just…I picked up her bow, and an arrow, and I…"

"Killed him."

In all the times she'd wondered, about what it was he saw when he got lost in his ghost stories, she had never really thought of something quite like this.

She had no idea what Slade looked like, who he was beyond the man Oliver shared part of his life with, so it was Diggle's face in her head, his eye that had an arrow sticking out of it – and it was probably what Oliver saw too, every time his ghosts felt closer than they should.

He hung his head, started turning away from her.

"No, hey – " She reached for his arm, pulling him back around until he was facing her; he wouldn't look at her.

"I wasn't –" She sighed. "I just, I wasn't expecting…that."

He nodded, as if to acknowledge her, but didn't move a muscle beyond it.

"I'm sorry, I – I don't know what to say here, I mean, what do you even say in this situation?" I'm sorry you ended up killing your friend, my condolences, was probably not it.

She closed her eyes, running a hand over her face.

"You don't have to say anything," she heard him speak; when she looked up, she found that his own eyes were wet. "It's enough that you're not running away."

"I told you," she reminded, "if figuring out you were a Russian mobster didn't make me run away, then there's not much that's going to."

He pressed his lips together, shifting his eyes away from her for a moment – which, she thought, probably meant that Russian mobsters were what this was all about. They came to the island, killed his friend, and now he was one of them. But if he wasn't going to say it, then neither was she.

"This feels like it qualifies," he remarked.

"Well, it doesn't." She took a deep breath. "But it does explain a lot."

There was a beat before he smiled, wide enough to show his dimples and crinkle his eyes at the corners; it made the tears there stick to his lashes, too.

"So…Shado," Felicity steered them back to, arguably, better memories. "She sounds really kickass."

"She was." He turned back to the case, to Shado's hood, and Felicity imagined he was probably thinking back on all the kickass things she had done while he'd known her. She couldn't see herself as Shado in these stories though, not the way she could see Diggle as Slade, so it was just the vague outline of a woman in her mind, face hidden by a green hood and a bow in her hands, slicing men full of arrows.

Maybe she should look her up. Just to see the face of the woman behind the name.

"Shado, she…she knew balance," Oliver went on, nodding to himself. "She knew what the dark parts of her were, and she knew how to live with it, how not to…get lost in that side of herself. And she tried to teach me that." He broke off there, shrugging in the silence, before he added, "But I still ended up being more like Slade than her."

"And that's a bad thing?"

He sighed. "I think it might've been."

Felicity trailed her eyes back to the suit – the hood. Shado's hood. Maybe it wasn't just about honoring her, or her father. Maybe he put it on like he would another person's skin, her skin, to be more like her; to be someone better than who he was.

"You know, um," she said, "and I'm not trying to step on your toes here, but…who you are, who and what you've become? You did that. Because…you're your own person, and you make your own choices, good or bad. Everyone else, they – they influence you, sure, but you're always your own person first." She shook her head. "No one makes you something you're not, Oliver."

There was a little smile at the corner of his mouth when he turned his attention back on her. "That's what Shado used to say, too."

"Is that why I remind you of her?" she found herself asking before she could think the better of it, then shut her eyes with a quiet sigh when he frowned. "Because, it's – I mean, it's not gonna be the ass-kicking part of it, right?"

His forehead only creased further at that, and he was blinking down at her like what she was saying didn't make all that much sense to him. Which meant she'd have to clarify. Great.

"I'm just saying, she was….this master archer slash proficient martial artist, right, and I'm – well, not. Like, really, really not. So, you know, I'm just – I can't see how that would…be the thing that made me remind you of her."

"Why do you say it like that?" he asked.

"Like what?"

"Like it's a bad thing," he said. "That you're not the kind of fighter that she was."

She closed her eyes again. "I'm not – I mean, it's not, just – " She groaned, raking her fingers through her hair. "It's just that," she tried again, keeping her eyes averted, "you're – well, you, and John's Special Forces, and Sara, she looks like she could kill a hundred men with just her pinky, and even Roy's got that street-brawler, diamond-in-the-rough thing going on, and then there's me, and I'm –" She shrugged. "I'm the one who can barely throw a punch in a team of ass-kickers, and it just – it makes a girl feel a little insecure, sometimes."

"Felicity."

He had this tone he used with her, gentle in a way that didn't make her feel fragile, and just low enough to weigh his words with meaning.

She felt the warmth of his hand against her shoulder even before his fingers splayed over her skin, and she couldn't help but fall in just a little closer, just enough to feel his breath on her face as he spoke. "None of us can do what you can," he told her. "And this team, it wouldn't be here without you." His hand slid down her arm, so he could lace his fingers with hers. "Just because you can, uh, barely throw a punch, doesn't mean you're not a fighter."

She smiled, holding back a sniffle. "Thanks for the reminder."

"Yeah," he whispered, slipping his eyes down her face, lingering, before he dropped them all the way down to their hands. She followed his line of sight, just watching his thumb rub circles on the inside of her palm for a while.

"Digg calls it our hand-holding routine." She frowned. "That's not weird, right?"

His soft laughter echoed right in her ear, and when she looked up, he was so close, their noses were almost touching. "And it's…totally not weird that I couldn't let go of your hand when you were unconscious, either." She swallowed. "Right?"

She could feel him smile. "You held my hand?"

"The whole time." It came out a little high-pitched, and a little strained, and wow, those tears had come up filling her eyes in two seconds flat.

"Hey…"

She shook her head, to shrug it off, to keep him from talking about it, but he still tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and held a hand up to her cheek, dragging his thumb across it. He was closer, too, so that it felt like he might as well have wrapped himself around her.

And she couldn't help but laugh under her breath.

"What?" he prompted.

"Nothing," she said. "It's just – we're having this really intense conversation, we're holding hands, and you're, you know, stroking my face, it's – " She laughed again.

He joined her this time, and she felt the soft rumble of his chest right against hers.

"Yeah, we should probably talk about that," he muttered.

"We probably should," she agreed, bringing her hand up to wrap it around his wrist; it was nice to feel the beating of his pulse under her fingers. And it was going kinda fast, too.

"You know, before you and Sara came down, uh, John said that you and I should…talk, that we should figure out where we stand, figure out…what we're doing here, and – " He cleared his throat. "How to let it go."

"Oliver – "

"No, just – just let me say it, please."

She nodded, letting her eyes settle on his mouth, watching as it formed the words.

"But the thing is, I don't want to," he said, licking his lips. "Because what, um, what I want, what I still want, is to be with you, because I – " He held his breath then blew it out, before he added, "Guess that's another thing that hasn't changed."

"And if you tell me," he went on, "that it's better that we stay friends and partners this time too, then I will never bring it up again, I promise. So…" He ran his knuckles down her cheek. "What do you want to do, Felicity?"

What she –

Well, what she wanted was to turn around and walk away, keep walking back until things were purely, blissfully and completely platonic again, or to stomp on them until they became so, and she wanted to kiss him again, and again, and keep kissing him right up until the moment they fell onto one of those mats behind them and then kiss him some more there, and what she wanted was to stay the course and stick to the original plan, and she wanted to let herself feel all the bright, bright colors of the rabbit hole on her way down, and what she wanted was to not have to deal with how afraid she was of people leaving, and dammit, she really wanted him to bring her coffee in bed, so really –

"I don't know."

"The couch's definitely too small for you," Diggle told him, patting the inadequate sleeping arrangements in question, "but I've got a sleeping bag somewhere that's nice and cozy."

"I'm fine with anything, Digg," Oliver said. "And thank you. Again."

"Don't mention it," Diggle dismissed the gratitude, again, before he tipped his head to the side, giving him a studying look. "You look kinda down though, man," he commented. "And not just because you haven't slept in two days."

No, it wasn't sleep-deprivation.

Though it probably was messing with his head.

Because he'd planted himself in front of his suit, and when Felicity came up next to him, he'd started telling her his stories, stories he'd told no one, stories maybe only five living men besides him knew, and the thing was, he'd confessed his sins as a test, to see if it would be the thing to make her walk away, the thing that would give him the clean break he didn't want.

But she'd pulled him back around even after hearing it, like she did every time, so what he got in the end was the outcome he'd hoped for; a few less secrets between them, and another reason for him to love her.

He loved her.

And God help him, he'd almost said it.

Almost thrown it in with the rest, almost told her he loved her in the same breath where he'd confessed to murdering his old friend, where he'd brought up things she'd tried so hard not to speak of, as if all of that hadn't be enough to hear already. But he'd stopped himself, even though his heart was going a mile a minute and his mind was getting fuzzy from having her so close, and she didn't get to hear it.

He did, though. He loved her.

He loved her, and for a moment there, she was looking at him like maybe, if he said it, she might even say it back.

It didn't quite work out like that, though.

So he took another sip of his beer, and said, "Felicity and I talked."

"And how'd that go?"

He didn't really know how to answer that.

He'd almost told her he loved her, she'd told him she didn't know where she wanted to take this thing they had between them, to maybe give her some time to figure it out, she wasn't sure, and then her sentences had gotten kind of fast, and a little babbly, and he'd just stood there and listened until she'd run out of breath, and he'd told her that it was fine, that she take all the time she wanted; it was fine.

The best approximation he could come up with for Diggle was, "We're still…firmly in the in-between."

"That sucks for you, man."

Oliver laughed, which he thought was probably Diggle's intention, but as he was winding down, he still found himself saying, "I almost told her I loved her, John."

Diggle's smile went away instantly. "So that's where it's at."

"Yeah," Oliver whispered.

"And you really want this? Still, with everything, you want to be with her, have an actual relationship with her?"

He'd wanted it almost from the moment he was sitting at breakfast with his sister and she'd told him denial was bad for his health, so… "Yes."

Diggle went silent for a while, as Oliver picked at the label of his beer bottle, before he said, "Then I'm glad for you."

He couldn't have heard that right. "You're…glad?"

"Well, not about…everything," Diggle clarified, "but I'm glad for you, Oliver, not that you're stuck loving someone who might not want the same things you do, but that you actually want those things. Because Felicity, she's all that's good, right? All that's too good for you?"

Oliver nodded.

She was the one with the rose-colored glasses, looking at a monster and seeing a hero.

That was how he used to think about it, anyway.

"And whatever I may think about it," Diggle went on, "you're still in a good enough place, up here" – he tapped his temple – "to want to be happy. You know, you just got blindsided by this…bad thing, with Isabel and everything, and you're still in a good place. I mean, even a few months back, I'd have thought that something like this would end up with me and Felicity having to talk you out of running back to Lian Yu but…" He shrugged. "You're in a good place," he said. "And I'm so glad for you, man."

Oliver ducked his head, because there were tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. "A lot of that is thanks to you, Digg," he managed to say after a moment, nodding as he looked back up. "I wouldn't be here without you."

John smiled at that. "Then I'm glad I could help, too."