Felicity was woken by late morning sunlight shining in her eyes. She groaned and rolled over, away from her window and the light flooding through it. Her sleep had been restless, filled with dreams of Oliver's lips on hers and his brilliant blue eyes, burning, always burning, melting away the walls she'd built up around herself like candle wax until, when she woke, she was sure there was no part of her he did not know. But of course, that had been a dream. She had no idea what the reality might be.
With a sigh, Felicity rolled out of bed, dressed, and then surveyed her room with a critical eye. If Oliver was still dead set on returning to Starling, it would do her well to prepare for the journey, so that she'd be ready the moment Oliver wanted to leave.
It didn't take her very long to pack up her belongings- she hadn't brought very much with her when she'd left Starling. She'd fastened her cloak around her shoulders and was in the middle of belting on the dagger Oliver had given her when a knock sounded at her door. She froze, one hand on her belt, the other on the hilt of the dagger.
"Come in," she called, her voice coming out high and tense, because somehow, she knew it was Oliver on the other side of the door. After a moment, it swung inward, and, just as she'd thought would happen, Oliver entered the room. He eyed the hand she still had resting on the hilt of her dagger and asked "You weren't planning on attacking me with that, were you?" His attempt at humor fell utterly, miserably flat, and Felicity didn't see any point in responding to it.
"What do you want?" she asked instead. The question came out harsher sounding than she'd meant it to, but after what had happened yesterday, she felt tense and unsettled just being in the same room as Oliver. She wondered if he was going to kiss her again. She wondered if she wanted him to.
"I wanted to apologize for my actions yesterday," Oliver said, dispelling any fantasies Felicity might have entertained that he intended to repeat any of them now. "I was desperate, and frantic, and I wasn't thinking clearly. I shouldn't have done what I did."
"What?" Felicity asked. "Charging into the library like a madman and announcing that we had to leave, without any sort of discussion or preparation? Or kissing me out of nowhere, in the middle of what seemed to be a completely normal conversation?" She waited, afraid of what the answer would be. Afraid of what she wanted the answer to be.
"All of it," Oliver said, and Felicity felt her heart sink. "Any of it. I shouldn't have done any of it. As I said, I wasn't thinking. I didn't take the time to consider the effect of my actions."
"It's alright," Felicity said. "We've all done things we wish we hadn't." Her attempt at levity fell as flat as Oliver's earlier attempt at humor.
"If I hurt you-" Oliver started to say.
"You didn't," Felicity interrupted. "I promise I'm quite alright." Oliver looked like he didn't believe her, but he didn't press the issue.
"You already packed," he said instead, seeming surprised by that fact.
"Yes, well," Felicity replied with a shrug. "I didn't take very much with me when I left Starling. Just give me some time to make some modifications to my spells so that they can be used without me having to be there, and to rebuild the wards I put up around the Foundry, and then I'll be ready to leave." Oliver nodded and retreated from the room, leaving her alone to do her work.
It was lucky that Felicity could practically do most of the spell modifications in her sleep, because her mind was most assuredly not on the task at hand. She kept mulling over Oliver's words, turning them around and around in her mind. He'd said that he regretted his actions yesterday. Did that mean he regretted kissing her? If that was the case, did that mean he didn't feel the way she'd dared to hope he might in the few breathless moments after that kiss? There was obviously some sort of attraction- people didn't generally go around kissing people they weren't attracted to on some level- but if Oliver regretted kissing her, that was the final nail in the coffin of the admittedly foolish notion that he felt or ever would feel the same way about her as she did about him.
Felicity forced herself to put those thoughts from her mind when she went to rebuild the wards in and around the Foundry. That required all of her concentration. This time, when she put the wards up, she made sure to reinforce them against magical attacks and hostile mages, particularly Merlyn in the second case, just in case he gained the courage to try and attack the Foundry alone, without Darhk to back him up or bolster his efforts.
When she finished her work, Felicity gathered up her meager belongings and met Oliver in the entrance hall, where he was waiting, clearly impatient to be off. They set out at once, back the way Felicity had come from, all those months ago. She hadn't expected to walk that path again so soon. She couldn't resist a glance back at the Foundry as they put it behind them, wondering if this would be the last time she ever saw it.
Oliver and Felicity traveled in silence. It was not a comfortable silence. Felicity suspected that the one topic they most needed to have a conversation about right now was also the one they were both the most afraid to bring up. She wasn't sure that she minded that. She would have been content to avoid it forever. She knew that any conversation about it could only end in pain, and she wished to put off putting herself through that for as long as possible.
When they camped for the night, Felicity decided, on a whim, to show Oliver an aspect of magic she knew he had not yet seen. She got the feeling they could both use a little distraction.
"Lend me your words please, Oliver," she said in a voice that she hoped sounded low and commanding, holding her hands out, palms up, over the fire.
"What?" Oliver asked. If Felicity hadn't already known that the type of magic she was about to show him was one he was unfamiliar with, his question would have told her so.
"Tell me a story," she clarified. "It doesn't matter about what. One from your childhood, if you like." Oliver shifted in his seat and eyed her warily. Before she had time to wonder if she should be hurt by that apparent lack of trust, he began to tell a story about a time, when his sister Thea was nine, that he'd taken her to a festival on one of the rare occasions that their mother let either of them out of sight of the Queen family hall. As he spoke, Felicity wove her hands through the air, plucking words like invisible threads and weaving them into an image of a young girl with short brown hair wearing a gold dress, brightly colored ribbons woven into her hair. She appeared to be looking at someone just out of view, someone much taller than her, as her head was tilted back.
Oliver faltered, his mouth falling open. He reached up as if to stroke his sister's cheek, either forgetting or not knowing that she wasn't really there. Felicity saw the tears glimmering in his eyes and, wincing in sympathy, drew her hands apart in a cutting motion, causing the illusion to shimmer out of existence. Oliver jerked forward, seeming to come back to himself.
"I'm sorry," Felicity mumbled, eyes downcast. "I didn't mean to cause you pain."
"You don't need to apologize," Oliver said, voice soft. "You didn't cause me any pain. I just...really miss my sister." Felicity nodded, but she wasn't quite that she believed him. She still couldn't bring herself to look him in the eyes, finding it easier to keep her gaze fixed on his feet. The next thing she knew, he was moving around the fire and dropping to his knees in front of her.
"Felicity," he implored, taking her hands in his. The calluses on his palms and fingertips were rough against her skin, but his touch was gentle. "Look at me." Felicity forced herself to draw her gaze level with his.
"You didn't hurt me," he assured her. "I promise. I don't think you ever could."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Felicity mumbled, pulling her hands out of Oliver's grip and lowering her gaze once more. He sighed, but moved back around to the other side of the fire without a word. He didn't press the issue, for which Felicity was extremely grateful, and they spoke no more that night.
