Oliver showers first. It's late and he can already hear the footsteps of his legitimate (and ignorant) employees arriving at the club. He keeps several spare sets of clothes in the basement for quick change purposes and it's not long before he's back in his usual managerial suit, all external traces of the Hood gone from sight. The bruises under the clothes are a different matter, but he's used to hiding his physical aches and pains by now.
He leaves a towel out for Felicity, but when he comes back down to check on her she's working at her desk, still in her dusty outfit.
She hasn't even taken the time to wipe the dried blood off of her forehead, though he supposes it's possible she doesn't know it's there.
"Felicity," he says and she jumps and looks up at him a little guiltily. "What happened to getting clean?"
"I wanted to get it all down, everything I can remember," she says, "before I start repressing today."
"Repressing?"
"And drinking," she adds. "Mustn't forget the drinking."
"Repressing and drinking," he comments, "doesn't sound healthy."
She fixes him with a look over the top of her glasses.
"Are you really going to tell me what's healthy and what's not?"
"Wouldn't dream of it."
"Good," she says, "because we both know your version of healthy - shooting people full of arrows and occasionally jumping off buildings - is not what you might term medically advisable."
"It works for me," he says.
She shakes her head, but she's smiling. And suddenly he remembers earlier in the day, before everything, when Diggle took him to task for not acknowledging the reality of his feelings for her.
"You need to get clean," he says, purposely shoving his hands into his jacket pockets so he won't be tempted to touch her.
"I will," she says, "as soon as..."
"As soon as what?" He prompts.
"As soon as this is done."
"And what's this?"
"What I can remember," she says, "there were four of them, two guys in masks, then Slade, the driver, then the British guy."
"I spoke to a Brit," Oliver says, "he asked for fifty million dollars."
"I know," she seems to shiver a little and he has to hold on the inside of his pockets to stop him reaching out to comfort her. "I told them that was too high. You'd never pay."
"I would have paid it," he says instantly.
"How?" Her forehead creases, "you don't have access to that sort of cash. Do you?"
"I don't know," he says, "and I didn't need to because you sounded the alarm and Diggle tracked the van on traffic cameras, and I knew I could find you, but if all I could have done was paid, I would have paid."
She stares at him, dumbfounded.
"They knew it was too high," she says, "it was just a ploy to get you there. To kill you."
"I know," he says, and he can't stop himself taking a step closer to her, though he keeps his hands secure in his pockets. "I still would have paid it. There's no amount of money that would be too much."
She's looking up at him, a little shocked, a little speechless, the grime of her ordeal still smeared on her skin.
She blinks suddenly and looks away.
"That's nice to know," she says, "but let's not say it too loudly. Still a lot of bad guys out there."
She looks back to her monitors.
"I've checked the footage," she says, "the car was reported stolen this morning. There's no clear shots of anyone other than Slade from the car - the other two wore masks, and there's no footage of Downton Hogwarts at all."
Oliver blinks.
"Downton... Hogwarts?"
"Oh," she says, flushing pink under the dirt on her face, "that was what I called him. In my head."
"Oh," he replies.
"I do that," she says, "when I don't know people's names. Like this guy at the office is Creepy McStaresville. I mean, I know now that his name is Michealson, but for a while he was just this creepy guy who always called me to fix things that go wrong under his desk. I mean, he still does that but now he has a name, and I'm babbling again."
"You are," he agrees.
"So I called him Downton Hogwarts because he was British. And not just like Walter-British but very British. Like masterpiece-theatre-British. And so Downton Abbey and Hogwarts from Harry Potter came into my head and, well it stuck."
"It makes it funny," he says, perceptively, "it makes it less scary."
"That's the theory," she says, "I'm not sure it works."
"Anything that keeps you sane works," he says, purposely keeping his voice light and trying very hard not to think about the island.
"Anyway," she says, " I was trying to find out who he might be, but I don't really have anything to go on."
"He's connected to me," Oliver says. "Somehow."
"You don't know?"
"No clue. I didn't recognise his voice."
"He certainly knew there was more to you than the playboy cover," she says. "His men might not of, but he and Slade, they knew."
"The list of people," he says, "who know that is very short."
"How about the list of people who suspect," she says, "or the list of people who can put it together?"
He doesn't say anything.
"How many people were there on that island with you Oliver?"
"By the end," he says, "there was only me."
"And before that?"
"Quite a few," he admits, "but I thought they were all dead."
"Like Slade?"
"Yes."
"So some of them could have escaped."
"It's possible. Not likely, but possible."
She reaches up to pat him on the hand and he realises that not only have his hands come out of his pockets but that he's holding onto the back of her chair so tightly that his knuckles are white.
Her hand pats his, then squeezes his fingers. He can't help but close his eyes while he enjoys her touch.
He never thought he'd get to touch her again. Thought that chance was past, lost. Destroyed in the explosion that left the warehouse so much rubble and body parts.
Body parts.
"Can you hack SCPD?" He says, pulling his hand out from under hers abruptly.
"Sure," she says. She's looking at him strangely, but he doesn't have time for that. He thought the blood and flesh torn up by the bomb were hers. But she's fine.
"There was a body," he explains, "or parts of one. In the warehouse, after the bomb exploded. I thought it was yours."
She gasps, and he's about to apologise when she gets it.
"So who was it?" She says half to herself as she turns back to the computer.
Her fingers fly over the keyboard, her eyes flick between screens.
"This might take a while," she says, "they upgraded their security after the earthquake."
"How long?"
"A few hours."
"Okay," he says, then puts his hands on the top of her wheeled chair and pulls it back from the desk.
"Hey!"
"If it'll take a while," he says, "you might as well be clean when you do it."
She doesn't get up so he pushes the chair in the direction of the very basic bathroom facilities the basement has. The chair rolls about a foot, stopping when she drops her feet down to brake.
She twists the seat round to glare up at him.
"Felicity," he says, "it's five minutes. You can take five minutes. The information will still be there."
"You don't know that."
"I'll take the chance. Go. Shower."
"I'd rather shower in my own home."
"Yeah well," he says. "Until I know it's safe I'm not letting you out of my sight."
"What even while I shower?" She says, then does that thing where she mentally replays her last line and winces.
"Get clean," he says. "The data will wait for you, and so will I."
She narrows her eyes.
"I'm not," he says, stepping in between her chair and the desk, "letting you back in here until you're clean."
She glares at him.
"I'll have you know," she says, "I do some of my best work dirty."
Pause, mental replay, wince.
"Oliver." Her hands come up to hide her face. "I don't mean to keep saying things like that."
"Get in the shower Felicity," he says, "the Internet will be here when you get back."
She scowls, then snatches up the towel and walks away, muttering under her breath. He can't hear her but he's sure none of it is complimentary.
He tries not to let on that he thinks she looks adorable.
Because she is adorable. She's amazing. She has a singular place in his life.
But people have noticed that. The wrong people. Today proves it. And as much as he might like to follow Diggle's advice and pull her even further into his life, that will just make her value to him so much more apparent to any prying eyes.
She's gone through enough today because of him.
But when he hears the tell-tale sound of running water, and he knows she's stepped into the shower cubicle he was in earlier, it's very difficult not to let his mind imagine it.