As they walk down the narrow streets of town Emma and Hook are both on guard. They've walked this path sporadically throughout the last few weeks. Trying to figure out any means of escape from this awful place. They've consecutively searched for chinks in the magical armour more often than not with the other magical individuals making up their faction.

Consequently, each time was proven fruitless. Emma had felt her hope dwindling with each new challenge. Falling deeper into a chasm of her own self doubt.

What if she isn't clever enough? Fast enough? Smart enough? What if she never finds her way back to her family? To Henry and the parents she never knew were missing her. What if...

"Swan, I can hear your thoughts from here. What's troubling you?" Hook's voice suddenly cut through her doubting inner spiral of depression. She turns her head to stare at the pirate who she had fallen in love with.

"Nothing. Just thinking," Emma smiles to herself remembering the last time that she'd seen Henry.

He insisted that they stay up late watching a horrible movie and bonding like a real family. After fifteen minutes of, "but we can make fun of Tom Welling!" she had given in to her son.

Emma liked to think of herself as a whole item. She didn't need anything other than herself to make her complete. But the moment that she met Henry she knew it was wrong.

She was a puzzle. One that was incomplete. Her pieces were scattered around. Helplessly laying about, facedown and incongruent. Then there was Henry. Once she saw him a piece of her fit into place. As though she'd never been without it. Her essence was more whole than it had been before.

Then he had thrust her into an unfamiliar place. Made her face her own fears and doubts. She was fighting against the other puzzle pieces. Insisting that they didn't fit. They had no place in her picture. They must've been placed in the wrong box, because they didn't belong here with her. Their pieces were too sharp or too soft around the edges. They just couldn't find their place.

And then, like magic, everything fell into place. Everyone slotted themselves perfectly inside her frame.

At these thoughts she began to tear up. Suddenly the stress of her entire life had caught up with her at once.

"Emma, love," Hook reached out to hold her arm steady. Thus halting her movement. "What is it that plagues you?"

Emma melts into the embrace as Hook holds her against his chest. She takes a few minutes to steady her nerves before pulling away. Nonchalantly bringing her hand up to swipe away a stray tear.

"Its nothing. Really. You know," she begins as she starts to continue walking. The whole time marking their path on a pad that they'd found. "You never did tell me why you were in Gold's shop that morning" she stated without explicitly asking for an explanation.

"And you never told me what you were doing with the Evil Queen" he states back as he looks down an alleyway noting the strange cylindrical columns in the middle.

"She wanted Henry to spend her birthday with her that weekend. She came down to the station to talk and then this happened" her hand gestures to the scene around them absently while she notes the building sizes and shop names that they pass.

Hook heaves a sigh as he readies himself to confess. "I was simply meeting Rumpelstiltskin to confer on a business deal"

Emma stops walking. "Business deal?" She asks looking straight into his eyes. Discerning his meaning from his stance.

"Precisely. He'll stay out of mine and I'll stay away from his. A business deal" he smirks just as he begins walking again.

XXXXX

"Love"

"Excuse me?" Dean asks his friend perplexedly.

They were searching through the east rooftops looking for all discrepancies within the confines of their prison. For that's what this place was. A prison camp. A ghetto.

Castiel was by his side mapping out the expanse of their assigned piece of oppression. Sam had decided to switch partners because he was still angry with Dean. The focus of his anger was split between his two betrayals. Letting in a literal Angel against his wishes and saving a figurative angel against his wishes.

"That's why you decided to lose your challenge on purpose" Castiel clarified.

Dean was taken aback once again by his blatant nature. Cas couldn't grasp the concept of beating around the bush. He always pushed. Went in for the kill.

"The extent of my love ends with Sam, you, the Impala and pie" he said looking away from his friend to 'survey the buildings' to his right.

"I don't believe that is the truth. Simple cause and effect. Had you only loved the select list given, you would not have disobeyed the promise that you made to Sam. You also wouldn't have willingly and knowingly put myself in danger for a woman that meant nothing to you. Innocent or not," Cas pauses to glance down at Felicity and Diggle passing underneath their feet surveying the footpaths on the ground.

"Might I also point out," he continued, "the fact that she was invited to this place by name. Not her partner, therefore she must have done something to get her here in the first place"

Dean didn't know what to say for a minute. That was true. But he couldn't possibly love her. He was incapable of the feeling for people who weren't his family. Cas was the only exception because he, quite literally, dragged Dean from Hell.

Thinking on his feet Dean replied, "I have the Mark of Cain and I was angry. I would've killed him no matter who was there"

"I do not believe that either. You have managed to control that anger in the past. Granted I don't like the influence that it has, but you only become murderously angry when it she is involved"

"I," he glances down for a moment looking to the team beneath them. Felicity was laughing at something that Diggle said. Her hair was catching the sun as she swayed her body with the movement from her mirth.

Suddenly Dean can see their lives outside of this prison. The images flash before his eyes like a movie on steroids. He needs this.

This is his salvation. Some people have a safe place. A home. Well, so does Dean. And now it doesn't only come with a Sasquatch's height or shadowed wings on a barn door. Now it also has blonde hair.

Dean remained silent for the rest of their search.

XXXXX

"You know, I have perfect vision"

Felicity's eyes grew wide as she halted mid stride. Her lips parted as she opened her mouth only to close it immediately after. "Was that an insult? Are you making fun of my glasses? That's just rude"

Diggle let out a short chuckle next to her. His hand came up to cup he elbow, gesturing for her to continue walking in the same direction that they'd been heading. "I only meant that I can see what's happening. Even if you can't"

"What is it exactly that you think I don't see?" She asked sarcastically. They both knew exactly where this conversation was headed.

She was dreading this. This topic was a bus full of orphans driving on a deserted country road covered in ice. One slight jerk of the wheel would have them careening into a tree. Her only hope? That there wasn't too much bloodshed. Then again, without ashes a Phoenix is only a bird getting up. Maybe she needs these ashes.

"This," Diggle pauses a moment to contemplate his statement, "romantic situation that you find yourself in"

"Way to be politically correct" she deadpans. "Why don't you just say it outright, Dig?"

"You've only known this guy for three weeks, Felicity. Granted those three weeks have been emotionally charged, but it isn't long enough to really know someone"

"I only knew you and Oliver for a month before I joined your team. And that was after you lied to me, consecutively, the entire month"

"That's another thing. I know the way you feel about certain members of this team"

Felicity gasped. Hand covering her mouth, she cranes her neck in order to see Diggle better. "So you know my secret..."

Diggle looks perplexed. Of course he knew her secret. Her heart has always been on her sleeve.

"...I'm in love with...Roy"

Diggle fixes her with an unimpressed expression before turning away to sweep his eyes across the street lamp on the adjacent street corner. A small upstart to the side of his lip could be seen. "It isn't healthy to just push those feelings away the minute that someone new comes into the picture"

The blonde gives a sigh. "It isn't like that. I did have feelings for Oliver. And maybe I always will, but this isn't a split second thing," she turns to face her friend. Holding onto his arm she tries to make him understand that she feels connected to Dean.

Felicity has always been the girl who was overlooked. She didn't have a serious boyfriend until college. And even then he hasn't really seen her. All that he had seen was a pretty face. Soon after that her mother had fallen ill, taking her father along for the sickness. When she began working with Oliver and John she had thought that he could return her feelings in time. After it was glaringly obvious that he would always hold candles for women in the Lance family Felicity had hung up her vigilante feelings.

She had tried. She had tried hard to wait out her time until someone stumbled upon her. Someone who could see her; the person that would see all of her flaws and love her for them instead of loving her despite them.

Dean made her feel that way. He made her feel like she was seen. But she didn't know how to tell that to John.

So she didn't.

"You just have to trust me" she smiled giving his hand a firm squeeze and continued walking.

XXXXX

Oliver is jumping once more from rooftop to rooftop. He doesn't stop. He can't stop. He has to keep going. Pushing him as his breaths begin to roll out heavier.

Since both he and Lance were in charge of the entire North region he had given the older man the footpaths to memorize while he took up the aerial view.

Up here, alone in the chaos he can breathe. He can think. His imagination can take root as his thoughts wrestle for dominance inside of his mind.

And up here, alone, he lets them take over.

Images of his family, of Diggle, Felicity, and all of the Lances take root within his cranium. He knows this is entirely his fault. No one that he knows would be here if it wasn't for him.

He was the irresponsible playboy that boarded that boat. He was the one who befriended Slade. He was the one who chose to murder Slade rather than saving him.

This was his fault and his alone.

Now the woman that he has come to feel for has slipped through his fingers. He knew that he could never have a relationship with her, especially not after the way that the Count had toyed with her to get to him. The truth of Felicity is that she doesn't wear a mask and everyone can see through his mask when she is near him.

Here, trapped in this maze, she has gotten over him. Felicity is no longer in love with Oliver. He knew. He always knew what her long stares meant. He understood why she would hug him after the more dangerous missions. She sought his comfort. His warmth. She doesn't seek his comfort here.

In this place Felicity has found someone else to share her light with. The same light that lit his path through the dark alleyways of his troubled mind when he'd first returned home.

On the island Oliver had stopped seeing people the way that they were. Every new face that he saw was an enemy or a threat. No one was a friend. Not anymore. Slade had taken his humanity, ripped it from his flesh. His soul was something mangled. It was no longer a white light, now it was tinted charcoal grey, littered with holes from torturous betrayals and manhunts. But then he came home. And he didn't change the way that he thought. His soul was still tarnished. His humanity was torn to shreds lying in tattered pieces littering the floor of his mind.

The next week he paid a visit to Felicity's office. Her brilliant light spread through him. He needed to be closer, like a moth drawn into her fiery flame. She picked up a needle and methodically began to sew together his broken parts. She made him feel whole again. He needed to be closer to this woman. To this salvation. Oliver never asked her to help. He didn't want to be saved. He didn't need it.

And Felicity gave it anyway.

She carried him broken from the wreckage slowly mending him back to health. However, she isn't his anymore. She had moved on to another broken soul. Dean.

Dean, whose life story Oliver had read in the dark during the nights after finding the books hidden under Felicity's bed, was who she now chose to give her light to.

He was the one who received the long stares. Dean was able to do what Oliver never had the courage to. Dean not only reached for her outstretched hand, but he also held out his other hand for her. Dean went all in on a stranger. Oliver had been hesitant in the beginning. He unknowingly let Felicity wiggle her magic underneath his skin. Not Dean. The freckled man had allowed her to see all of his flaws, hoping that she wouldn't love him despite them, but love him for them. And she had.

Just because Oliver wasn't good at expressing his emotions didn't mean that he couldn't spot them in others around him. In fact, he had made it his mission to know how those around him were feeling. It kept him alive. Now he knows that he will need to let her go.

The only question is how hard the separation will be for him.

"I'm done down her!" Lance called up from the alleyway parallel to Oliver's building.

"I am too. Let's head back to the others"