Felicity's mouth gaped open as Oliver's car rounded a bend and she got her first up close look at his family home. It was known as the Queen mansion, but somehow she hadn't expected something quite so big, hadn't expected this towering, sprawling structure of solemn grey stone, with a green shingled roof and ivy climbing its face. She craned her neck, trying to see more of it as Oliver pulled up beneath the archway that stood before the front door and brought his car to a halt.
"You weren't expecting it to be so big, were you?" he asked with a half smile. Felicity shook her head.
"Did it ever get lonely?" she asked. "In this big old house all by yourself?" This time it was Oliver who shook his head.
"I was never by myself," he said. "My mom didn't work, so she was always around, and besides her there was Thea, and Raisa and the house staff, not to mention Tommy and his dad were around all the time…" He trailed off, lost in memories. After a moment, he shook himself vigorously and seemed to force himself back into the present.
"We should get inside," he said. "Thea's probably starting to wonder if I've bailed on her." Though his words were speculative, he spoke with a tone of absolute certainty that came from knowing another person intimately, in the way only their sibling could. Felicity nodded and followed him out of the car and up to the door, where he rang the bell and waited patiently for someone to answer.
"Ollie!" Thea said eagerly when she opened the door. "You came!"
"I said I would," Oliver replied.
"Yeah, but you took so long I was starting to wonder if you'd bailed on me," Thea said. Oliver cast a sideways glance at Felicity as Thea ushered them inside, as if he thought she might have doubted him when he'd said as much earlier.
"Do you mind if I borrow Felicity for a moment before you get started?" Thea asked when they were all inside and she'd closed the door behind them. Oliver looked puzzled, but said, "Sure," before moving off into a room just off the main hallway. When he was gone, Thea asked "How's Oliver doing? Is he okay? We haven't seen much of each other lately, what with his move and things being so crazy at QC recently. I know he's been seeing a therapist, and it's really been helping him, but still. Sometimes I worry." Felicity hadn't known that Oliver was seeing a therapist, but she decided that it didn't matter. It wasn't like he was required to share every detail of his life with her. He was more than entitled to keep personal things like that to himself.
"He's fine," she said. "Putting physical distance between himself and his old life must have really helped him- he seemed really happy when I saw him on Friday night, happier than I think I've ever seen him." She decided not to mention that she'd been with Oliver all weekend. She didn't want to give Thea the wrong idea.
"Good," Thea replied with a relieved smile. "That's good. I'm glad to hear it." Felicity nodded and moved past her into the room that Oliver had disappeared into, which turned out to be the living room.
"What did my sister want?" Oliver asked when he saw her.
"Just to find out if you were doing okay," she replied. "She said that you guys haven't seen much of each other lately, and she gets worried when it's been a while since she was last able to check up on you." Oliver chuckled.
"That sounds like my sister," he said.
"So I guess all that's left to do now is get started on what we came here for in the first place?" Felicity asked. Oliver nodded, but said, "One sec." He leaned out of the living room doorway and called "Thea?"
"Yeah Ollie?" came Thea's reply a moment later.
"Which guest bedroom are Roy's parents staying in?" Oliver asked.
"Main floor!" Thea called back.
"Thank you!" Oliver shouted before pulling himself back into the living room.
"Voices carry really well in here," he said in response to Felicity's questioning glance. "Growing up, Thea and I used to drive our mom crazy shouting back and forth at each other like that because it was faster than trying to find each other in this big old house." He smiled fondly at the memory.
"Let's go," he said after a minute or so, jerking his head toward the doorway. Felicity followed him out of the living room, up the stairs, and down several hallways until they came to a linen closet tucked into an out of the way corner.
"Leave the door open," Oliver said. "The light in here doesn't work."
"Of course it doesn't," Felicity muttered, but did as he said, following him into the mess of a linen closet and stopping just inside the door.
"What exactly are we looking for?" she asked.
"The sheets for the bed in the main floor guest bedroom," Oliver replied. He described them to her quickly, adding, "We'll get this done faster if we each start looking in different places." Felicity nodded. She couldn't argue with that logic. After they'd been looking for a while, they heard footsteps coming down the hall. Oliver tensed, listening, then said, "Raisa."
"You can identify people by the pattern of their footsteps?" Felicity asked, awed.
"It's a survival skill you learn pretty quickly when you're held prisoner by multiple people," Oliver answered bluntly. Thrown as she was by that admission, Felicity didn't notice Raisa closing the closet door as she passed until she and Oliver were suddenly plunged in darkness. Felicity ran toward the door, stumbling in the pitch black, calling after Raisa that they were in there, but she was already gone. She tried the doorknob, but it wouldn't budge.
"Frack," she mumbled. The only other sound in the cramped, pitch dark space was Oliver's breathing, which she quickly noticed was much more rapid and ragged than it should have been.
"Oliver?" she asked. "Are you okay?" There was a long silence before Oliver said, "No," in a strained voice.
"Okay, just…don't have a panic attack on me, alright?" Felicity asked. Oliver's response was a strangled, desperate laugh.
"Too late," he managed. Felicity chewed her bottom lip anxiously.
"Oliver," she said. "Just listen to my voice, okay? I'm going to try to get over to you. Keep listening to my voice. Focus on that, and try to take deep breaths." She felt her way along the shelves toward where she'd heard Oliver's voice. She waved a hand through the air until she found Oliver's and laced her fingers through his.
"I'm here," she said, giving his hand a squeeze. "I'm going to sit down. Can you move right now? Can you try and sit down with me?"
"I can try," Oliver said, still gasping for breath. Felicity slid down the shelf at her back, tugging Oliver down with her. For the next few minutes, Felicity continued to talk softly and soothingly to Oliver, telling him to take deep breaths, until finally his breathing evened out and became less ragged. She froze when she felt his touch trace the line of her cheekbone and jaw, and in the next moment his lips were on hers in the pitch dark. Conscious thought failed her, but her body reacted, her hands reaching up to curl around the back of his neck and pull him closer to her. She felt warmth at her sides that could only be Oliver's hands, holding her gently but firmly. Felicity didn't quite know how this was happening, but she didn't want to stop to think about it. All she wanted to do was get lost in this moment and never come back. But all too soon, it was over. She felt Oliver pull back, as suddenly as if he'd been shocked.
"I'm sorry," he said, breathless. "I don't know what came over me. I-"
"Don't be sorry," Felicity interjected. "After all, I kissed you back. That should tell you something, shouldn't it?" Oliver huffed out a laugh, and Felicity felt him press a kiss against the top of her head.
They shifted until Felicity was leaning back against Oliver, her head on his chest, his arms curled loosely around her waist. Their hands found each other in the dark and intertwined. Felicity could feel how her hand fit perfectly in Oliver's, like they'd always been meant to fit together.
"Why didn't either of us make a move like this sooner?" she murmured.
"If you're the sort of person who would conspire to have us get accidentally on purpose locked in a closet together, then I really don't know you at all," Oliver teased.
"You know what I mean," Felicity retorted. It was a long time before Oliver answered.
"I don't know," he said at last. "I guess I was just afraid. I thought there was no chance in hell that someone as good as you are could ever love someone as broken as I am."
"You're not broken, Oliver," Felicity said solemnly. "And it's funny that you mention being afraid, because here I was thinking that someone like you would never even so much as look twice at someone like me. I've been in love with you since I met you, but I kept it to myself this whole time because I thought you were out of my league."
"I could never be out of your league," Oliver said. Felicity somehow knew that he was shaking his head. "If anything, you're out of mine."
"I guess we're just a couple of clueless idiots," Felicity said. Oliver laughed.
"I guess we are," he said, and kissed her again. Light suddenly flooded into the closet, breaking them apart. Thea, standing framed in the closet doorway, let out a low whistle.
"If I'd known that this is what it'd take for you two idiots to admit your feelings to each other," she said, "I'd have locked you in a closet together a long time ago." Neither of them had a response to that. Felicity felt a blush warming her cheeks.
"Anyway, I'm going to go before I start imagining what you two might have done in here if I hadn't come along just now," Thea said. She walked away with an over exaggerated shudder.
"So where do we go from here?" Felicity asked when Thea had gone. Oliver shrugged.
"I suppose there's really only one place we can go after all of that," he said.
"Trying out this whole dating thing?" Felicity asked with a smile. Oliver nodded. After a pause, he asked "Felicity, would you like to go to dinner with me?" Try though she might, Felicity couldn't stop an exultant grin from spreading across her face.
"Yes," she said, and felt like her whole life was about to change just from that one word.