"What are you doing back?" Thea asked the moment Oliver stepped through the door of his apartment. She'd arrived there shortly before he'd left for his date with Felicity, she said to "keep an eye on things", but Oliver knew the real reason was so that she'd be there to press him for details the moment he got home- if he'd ended up returning home alone, of course. If he'd brought Felicity, she would have discreetly excused herself and extracted the details about his date from him at a more appropriate time. "I wasn't expecting you for at least another hour." Instead of answering, Oliver leaned back against the door and closed his eyes, feeling a sudden weariness weighing him down. When he opened them again, Thea was fixing him with a pointed look, pinning him in place with her gaze in a way that reminded him uncannily of their mother.

"I don't know," he said. "Everything was going great, I was telling Felicity about those five years I was missing and it miraculously wasn't making her run away screaming, but then…" He trailed off.

"But then?" Thea prompted impatiently.

"I realized that the worst thing I can do to her is drag her down to my level," Oliver said. "She's so good, Thea, purely good, far more good than anything I deserve, and I couldn't allow myself to corrupt her, even for a moment. So I… faked a work emergency and bailed." He made a sweeping gesture that brought to mind somebody fleeing.

"You really are an idiot, Ollie," Thea scolded. "Do you really think that Felicity would feel the way she does about you if any of what you just said about yourself were true? You're not broken, Ollie. You're not a bad person. Felicity sees you for who you really are, not this monster that you think you are, and your true self is who she loves." Oliver was silent, contemplating Thea's words. She was absolutely right, and now that he'd gotten some distance and a clear head, he knew that. He only hoped he hadn't broken things with Felicity beyond repair.

"So, what should I do?" he asked, counting on Thea for more of the sage advice he'd come to rely on from her.

"Well, stop moping around here, for starters," Thea replied. "Turn yourself right back around, get out there, and go get your girl back. Go to Felicity and tell her what really happened. Be open and honest with her about why it happened, and promise her that it'll never happen again. She'll understand. I'm sure of it." Her answer caught Oliver off guard, and he hesitated, still standing by the door. He hadn't expected her to have it all laid out quite so neatly quite so fast.

"What are you still standing around there for?" Thea demanded. "Go! Now! Before it's too late and you miss your opportunity!"

"All right, all right, I'm going," Oliver said, laughing in spite of himself. He was through the door and out in the hall before Thea could say anything else. He paused to take a deep breath and compose himself before he set off.

On his way to Felicity's apartment, he made a few quick pit stops to get coffee and a pint of mint chip ice cream- her favorite- thinking it pertinent to arrive with some sort of peace offering in hand. He was on his way back to his car with the ice cream when his phone rang.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Is this Oliver Queen?" asked the person on the other end- a woman, from the sound of it, and no one he knew. He frowned, puzzled. The days of him getting calls from strange women were a long ways in the past.

"Yes," he said. "May I ask who's calling?"

"This is Doctor Beth Schwartz over at Starling General," the woman- Doctor Schwartz- replied. Oliver's immediate thought was that something had happened to Thea after he'd left.

"What happened?" he asked. "Is my sister alright?" Panic edged into his voice at the thought of Thea having been hurt.

"Your sister is fine," Doctor Schwartz assured him in a calm, measured tone. She clearly had a lot of experience calming concerned family members. "I'm calling about your friend. Felicity Smoak." Oliver felt himself go numb. He was dimly aware of the ice cream he was carrying falling from his nerveless fingers and splattering on the ground.

"What happened?" he managed to ask.

"She was in a car accident," Doctor Schwartz explained simply. "She was stopped at an intersection and another driver ran the red light and struck her from the side."

"Is she going to be okay?" Oliver asked, the pitch of his voice rising slightly out of fear.

"For the moment, it seems so," Doctor Schwartz said. "Car crash injuries are always a bit touch and go, but right now her prognosis looks good." Oliver breathed a sigh of relief before he realized it wasn't over yet. Felicity might be okay for now, but she was still in the hospital.

"I'll be right there," he told Doctor Schwartz before hanging up the phone.

When he arrived at Starling General, he found Doctor Schwartz waiting for him in the lobby. She turned away and led him up to Felicity's room without a word. When they reached it, she opened the door carefully and stepped aside to let him through. He approached it with some trepidation, afraid of what he would see. Finally though, he mustered his courage and stepped through the door.

His first sight of Felicity hit him like a punch in the stomach, driving the air from his lungs. He'd never thought of her as fragile, but that was how she looked lying there in a hospital bed that nearly dwarfed her, her eyes closed, cuts and bruises all over her face. It wasn't until he saw the steady rise and fall of her chest that he himself could breathe again.

A small, broken sound escaped him, and he fell back against the wall next to the door, suddenly lacking the strength to hold himself upright.

"How bad is it, exactly?" he asked, not taking his eyes off of Felicity. It was hard for him to get the words out- he felt like he was choking on them.

"Head trauma, three broken ribs, broken arm, multiple cuts and contusions," Doctor Schwartz answered, sounding like she was reading off a chart. Oliver didn't begrudge her her clinical tone- he understood that in situations like this, people were relying on her to deliver information about her patient's condition in a clear, concise manner. Whatever she might be feeling, she couldn't allow her emotions to enter the equation. After a few minutes, he heard her say, "I'll give you some time alone," her words accompanied by the sound of her footsteps receding into the distance.

The moment he was alone, Oliver pushed himself away from the wall and crossed the room, dropping heavily into the hard plastic chair at Felicity's bedside. He took her hand in his and slumped forward until his forehead was resting against the blanket that covered her small frame. Then he finally allowed himself to cry, all of his pent-up emotions manifesting themselves at once in the form of painful sobs that clawed their way up his chest and throat and rattled his frame.

"This is all my fault," he whispered in a broken voice to the nearly empty room.