Oliver blinks.
He's standing alone in her kitchen. He can hear the muted sounds of whatever movie or television show it is she's chosen playing in the living room.
He stands alone in her kitchen and he absolutely does not know what to do.
Did a slightly drunk Felicity really just kiss him and yell at him and tell him to man up and make a choice?
Though he admits, he kissed her first. He closed the distance between them. He touched her lips with his.
But she's responded. She touched his face. She let him lift her up and pulled him into her embrace.
She did that.
And then he stopped it.
Because he had to. Because if today has shown anything it's that he can't be trusted around her.
She's worth too much and she almost died because of him and she's put a choice on the table and he doesn't know how to face it.
She's also now drunk two bottles of wine by herself and he doubts she would have said so much if she'd been entirely sober.
But if she'd been entirely sober would she have kissed him at all?
He replays it all in his head. The spicy wine taste of her mouth. The soft noises she made when he kissed her. The way her fingertips stroked his skin. How she opened herself to him, pulling him in to stand between her legs, wrapping herself around him.
He wants nothing more than to kiss her again. Discover what noises she might make as he runs his hands over her body or kisses the side of her neck. Learn what makes her gasp and mewl and moan.
His traitorous mind flashes an image at him - Felicity's naked back as he watched her change through the window. And Felicity, damp from the shower, wrapped in a towel, crouching beside him, his hand moving of its own accord to trace the path of a droplet of water on her flushed skin.
She's sitting on the sofa, right there, right in the next room.
It's a distance of feet.
He could walk to her in seconds, press her down into the cushions and brand himself into her skin.
Touch her.
Claim her.
Love her.
And then eventually get her killed.
Just like Tommy. And Shado. And even Slade.
Slade who he thought was long dead, for whom he carried guilt for failing his part of the mission. Slade who kidnapped Felicity and would have left her to die as close to him as she is now, gasping for water and clawing at her own throat as her body drowned on air.
She's still at risk. If he leaves now it could all begin again - there's still at least one enemy out there who knows her value to him.
And would that value really change all that much if he walked into the other room and kissed her?
He's never touched her romantically before today and she still almost died.
And she says she won't leave. So she'll never be safe.
And if she did leave would she even be safe? He wouldn't be there to watch over her and keep her safe after all.
Would it not be better to go to her as she asks and keep her safe himself, using all of the hard fought skills that Slade and Shado taught him?
His mind swims. Possibilities and nightmares and fantasies overlapping and replaying.
It's a simple choice. Stay or go?
It's an impossible choice. Stay or go?
The sound of the television seems to diminish and before he can think about it, he's crossed to the doorway to check on her, make sure she's alright.
Felicity is curled up on the sofa, a blanket pulled down around her shoulders. Her back is to him, he can't see her face, but she looks at peace.
She's not stretched out across the whole couch. There's enough space left enough for someone to join her.
He wonders if she did that intentionally.
If he leaves, if he draws that line of what she is to him, this won't ever happen again. He won't be able to touch her.
Other men will but not him.
He thinks about the hand she offered him at Tommy's funeral, the hand he held on the first day of his mother's trial. He thinks about rubbing her shoulders, carrying her to the cot in the basement, his hand on her naked thigh. He thinks about leaving her with the bomb only hours ago, then being so convinced that she was dead and feeling only loss. Loss of something he never quite realised he had.
Something he'd always avoided trying to see.
He doesn't know if this is love.
It feels different to Laurel, the other half of the only other love story he's ever been part of. Laurel was beautiful and trusting and electric too, but she was also ambitious and determined and, if he's being honest with himself, disappointed in him. He never quite seemed able to live up to the high standards she had set, and after a while he would purposely try not to. He cheated on her because it was easy and because the other women were there and because at least that meant she wasn't being all disappointed at him failing a college class or choosing a kegger over going to some high culture event with her.
Felicity challenges him in a different way. She's pushed him to change his methods, to not kill, but he hasn't felt that she did it because she's trying to improve him, instead because it was the right thing to do. The better thing to do.
Laurel's right thing always involved conforming to what society expected. Felicity's is more moral, less about appearances.
Or is he oversimplifying? Laurel fights very day for people who have no else left to fight for them and she does it inside the system. Is that more or less moral than Felicity's attempts to push him towards the light?
The truth of it is that both women are very similar in who they are at the core - all their differences are surface level.
Laurel is never anything less than confident, Felicity is frequently flustered. Laurel would never have gambled, Felicity can count cards. Laurel was taken in entirely with his cover, Felicity had begun to see through it even before he turned up bleeding in her back seat.
Laurel sees the past, both theirs and the apparently insurmountable obstacles of the island and Tommy.
Felicity only knows him as he is now.
And she knows all of him as he is now. She's witnessed all sides of his life and she's almost died and she still chooses to stay anyway.
Would Laurel?
On the sofa Felicity lets out a soft sound, and he realises, with a smile that it's a snore.
She kissed him and she yelled at him and she challenged him to make a choice and now she's asleep.
Trusting his footsteps to be silent, he moves across the room towards the back of the sofa.
He sees her hair first.
Those shining, golden tresses.
He remembers her saying she dyed it and how he couldn't resist leaning in to see if he could spot the roots, see her natural colour.
He remembers the softness of it as he kissed her.
He remembers the sight of it down around her shoulders in that gold dress.
He remembers her pushing Diggle and himself away in that dress with a bomb around her neck, concerned more for them than for herself.
She does that. Puts others before herself. If he leaves now, she said she will still come to the club tomorrow. Still work with him for the good of the city. Still work with him, even if it breaks her heart to do so.
He doesn't want to break her heart.
He doesn't want to break any part of her.
And she's right. No matter what, she's in his life now.
She's curled up on her side, one arm under her head, the other clutching the blanket tight around her.
There are bags under her eyes and scratches on her skin. He can see the rising purple marks on her neck.
But she's at peace. Safe here with him.
He thinks about the past year. All the moments he could have kissed her. There's been more than one; moments of tension and possibility, and yet he kissed her tonight in her kitchen when she asked him to get glasses for wine.
Felicity stirs in her sleep and without thinking he places a hand on her shoulder, smoothes the blanket there.
If he leaves he won't be able to touch her anymore.
She relaxes, smiling in her sleep.
She settles back against the cushions. But there's still space for him there.
He kissed her tonight because his instincts told him to.
And he trusts his instincts.
And despite all of his doubts, all of his worries, he can't regret kissing her.
He steps around the sofa and crouches, bringing his face close to hers.
He gently cups her cheek with his hand, sees how she smiles and turns her head into his touch, despite her lack of consciousness.
And Oliver Queen makes his choice.