Hey guys! Just wrote something quick and thought I'd share. This is technically a one-shot, and can be read as such, but it can also a companion piece to my fic I'm Just Trying to Get Home. Hope you all enjoy!

"This is actually the worst, Oliver."

"I know," he replied solemnly, staring out the window of his bedroom. There was no activity on the grounds of the Queen mansion, which was an eerie sight. "But it'll be over soon and then everything will go back to normal. We've just got to wait it out."

"But I'm nearly out of mint chip ice cream," she whined – in the most adorable way, and he could practically visualise the way her bottom lip jutted out when she said it. He chuckled softly down the phone. "It's not funny, Oliver! I made sure that my mom got three tubs of it to tide us over because I knew that one tub wouldn't survive a day in the Smoak household – and I was so right about that because one was gone the second it was taken out of the grocery bag - but it turns out that three wasn't enough either because I hadn't planned on my mom having an impromptu girls night Skype call with her old school friends which, as it would turn out, required her to eat an entire tub of ice cream all to herself!"

"Okay-"

"Which only leaves me with one left! One!"

"Yes I can do the math," he laughed, picking up a pen from his desk and twirling it between his fingers.

"And God knows how many days of this are left!"

The exasperation in her voice drew the biggest smile from him. Only Felicity Smoak could be this passionate about mint chip ice cream. "I think we have a tub in the freezer, I'll hop on my bike tomorrow and bring it to your house," he offered.

She sighed sadly. "Oliver…that's so sweet of you but you know that I live beyond the restrictions. I don't want you to get in trouble."

"I won't get in trouble," he replied quickly. "I'm crazy stealthy; I can get around them. Quick in and out, no one will even notice me."

"No," she warned, "you are not risking breaking the law for me. Especially not for ice cream. We have to take this stuff seriously."

He hesitated for a moment. God, how he wanted to just hop on the bike or jump in the car and go over to her. He just wanted to see her. "I know; you're right."

It had been six days since he had seen her.

Six. Days.

That was the longest time they had ever spent apart since they had been together and Oliver wasn't sure how much longer he could take of this.

"I know that I'm complaining about stupid things but I just…I just really miss you, Oliver," she almost whispered.

His heart tugged. "I really miss you, too."

"And I'm not saying that having ice cream would make me miss you less but I am saying that it would ease the pain just that little bit more," she tagged on, breaking the slight serious shift in tone.

This time he couldn't help but let the snort escape him. "You're something else, you know that? There we were having a nice moment and you go ahead and-"

"Ruin it?" she teased, the smile evident in her voice.

Oliver paused momentarily and then, "No, make it better. You always make everything better, Felicity."

Silence enveloped them for a few seconds, but it wasn't an awkward silence. It was a warm kind of a silence that seemed to surround them and anchor them.

"Okay," his girlfriend finally said tenderly, "I'm gonna say goodnight because I'm tired and I'm trying to keep some sort of routine and normalcy in my life before I go actually cuckoo and lose my mind. Goodnight, Oliver. I'll talk to you tomorrow?"

"I'll talk to you tomorrow. Hope you dream about me!" he quipped.

"You wish!" she retorted.

"Night, Felicity," he said with an affectionate chuckle and then hung up the phone and tossed the pen he was holding back onto the desk.

Looking back out over his garden, Oliver breathed a long sigh, hating the way everything was right now.

The mayor of Starling City had ordered a city-wide lockdown due to a release of a toxic chemical that had been purposely let out by yet another person hell-bent on destroying the city. Seriously, there was a crazed weirdo planning something insane and dangerous every other week in this city. Starling was like a breeding ground for D-list anarchists.

Someone needed to do something about that, Oliver thought. The police claimed to be on top of it and seemed to be promising the sun, moon and stars at every press conference, spouting this and that about how they were recruiting more and more men and women and designing new and improved plans for patrolling, but it was obvious to him and probably every other citizen that crime was getting worse, not better.

Initially, they had been told that the toxic chemical in this particular case had been neutralised just in the nick of time, but then a week ago – or, well, six days ago to be exact – an immediate, no questions asked, command that every person stay inside their homes for the foreseeable future went out across all airwaves and televised broadcasts. All were to stay indoors, save for going for one weekly grocery shop in which only one person was allowed to go and one daily exercise that could not exceed thirty minutes. Any and all social events, schools, universities, non-essential businesses were to be closed.

Cops lined every street corner, patrol cars drove around neighbourhoods, checking ID and making sure everyone was obeying the rules. No one knew the punishment of breaking these rules but no one wanted to find out either.

Fear was a funny thing.

The whole thing kind of felt like being a prisoner in your own home.

No one knew how long this would last - there was no timeline, no end in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel. Though it had been emphasised that it was still safe to go outdoors, there was an innate fear in the air that was so palpable that Oliver was almost sure he could taste it whenever he set foot outside.

But the worst part of it?

Not being able to see Felicity.

The last time he had seen her was the week previous. They went to see a movie and then he drove her home. There was no knowledge of what was to come so he gave her a quick kiss goodbye and promised to see her the following day, not even bothering to linger outside her house for that little bit longer to make sure she was inside before he pulled away.

Boy, how he wished he had savoured every second spent with her.

Sure, he could call her, could video chat with her – and they had been doing that every day. Sometimes twice a day. They texted all the time.

But it wasn't the same.

He wanted to hug her, to wrap his arms right all the way around her and for her to nestle her head right under his chin so he could breathe her in. She always smelled like vanilla and he'd be lying if he said that wasn't his favourite scent in the whole world.

He wanted to kiss her for just a couple of seconds longer than he usually would and really soak in the feel of her lips on his.

Oh man, he had it bad.

Had it bad since the moment he met her if he was perfectly honest.

But it felt different now. There was something different about the way his heart warmed when he thought of her, something different about the way his pulse thrummed when she spoke his name, just…something different.

He was afraid to say it out loud though, as though by saying it and releasing it into the world that it would somehow be snatched away from him, that it would be tainted by reality and twisted and warped into some boxed-in, limited, youthful desire.

But after all this – this albeit brief separation, Oliver just knew he was ready to say it.

He was in love.

Real love.

A forever-no-matter-what kind of love.

With Felicity Smoak.

He didn't care how young he was or how young she was or how ridiculous the whole thing would sound to someone older than him; he knew it in his heart. This wasn't some fleeting emotion; this was embedded inside of him, filling every single pore and vessel of his body, flowing and moving and encompassing him.

But now that he had finally allowed himself to admit it, he had to tell her. It was like the words were trying to rip and claw their way up through and out of him, and every time Oliver was talking to Felicity, the urge to let it slip out was almost too great. The second her soft tone hit his eardrum, the words were reignited and threatening to trip off the tongue at any given moment. Usually he tried to cover the urge with a cough or a clearing of the throat, the effort of those things alone enough to quell the syllables for just that little bit longer but as the days wore on, it was getting more and more difficult.

Felicity deserved to hear those words in person. In the most beautifully planned out way, at the right time – but he also didn't want to push her either. Oliver knew that they were moving quickly and that things between them grew serious at a much faster rate than anyone expected. So there was a fear that maybe she didn't happen to feel the same way. That though she was on the same page – and he knew she was; he never questioned the severity of her feelings toward him – the 'L' word would propel their relationship to a whole new level that maybe she wasn't ready for yet.

No, she deserved nothing short of the best he could give her and for right now, the best he could give was his heart and the courtesy of waiting until they could be together to fully convey the depths of his feelings toward her.

Then his phone pinged.

A video message from Felicity.

Curious, if not a little bemused considering he just got off the phone with her mere minutes beforehand, Oliver propped himself on the edge of his bed and clicked into the message.

"Hey," she started, working her lip between her teeth which she only really did when she was nervous which in turn made him nervous. She was lying on her bed, blonde hair fanned out on her pillow, phone angled above her face high enough so that he could almost see the reflection of her phone in her glasses.

"So I know we were just on the phone and so you're probably like, 'Why is she sending me this now? What is going on? Is this just another medium by which she can convey her longing for much-needed candy? ' but I couldn't wait any longer to send this – and trust me, I have debated over and over again about whether to hit 'Send' or not. So, if you're getting this…well, then I have impressed myself because, believe it or not, this is attempt eighteen – attempt seventeen was this close to being sent but then I chickened out because I thought about all the terrible things that could come from me sending a message like this to you and I thought, 'No, there's no need. He doesn't need to hear this right now, why ruin a good thing, you know?' But my stupid, stupid" – she squeezed her eyes shut, the base of her hand leaning against her forehead, "- brain won't let this go. And my heart too, I guess, if we're gonna go down that route."

Oliver paused the message, his stomach churning in the way that it does just before he has to go into the dentist's office. She looked…worried. Maybe? It was really hard to tell.

Shaking his head in an attempt to keep his thoughts from roving from one place to another – pull yourself together, Oliver - he then clicked resume.

A sad breath of a laugh fell from her lips. "I know this is the worst time to do this – like, I mean, could I have picked a worse time? We can't even physically see each other! Talk about bad timing. But the more I put this off, the harder it is for me and I just need to get the words out – and you know that I usually have no problem in getting words out, it's more to do with the pattern in which they come out. I just…" her words trailed off, her free hand that was dancing in the air with every sentence she spoke now coming to rest on top of her head. "Oliver…" she whispered as though afraid of the sound of her own voice, "I've never felt this way about anyone before. Like, I've read about it and I've watched countless movies about it but I've never experienced it. Not until I met you. Truth be told, until I met you, I wasn't even sure that it actually existed. You know, that it was even real. And I'm someone who lives by facts and patterns and thrives off decoding things and understanding how things work but this? This I can't explain or understand. And let me tell you I've tried! I have googled so many things that now I get the strangest ads popping up on my laptop, and I mean the strangest," she said, scrunching her face.

He couldn't help but grin at that.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that…" Felicity whooshed out a breath, eyes wary yet open. Oliver held his breath, heart hammering so hard that he was sure it must have been visible through his shirt. "What I'm trying to say…is that I love you, Oliver Queen. I am in love with you. And I know I couldn't have picked a worse time but I've been wanting to say this for so long and every time I talk to you, it just wants to come out of me and the longer we're apart, the harder it is and I just needed you to know. I understand that you might not feel the same way and maybe this could ruin what we have, I don't know…but I love you, Oliver and I really need you to know that. So, yeah, that's it, I guess. 'Night." And then the screen went black.

I love you, Oliver Queen.

It was like he had become weightless, floating around as light as a feather, as free as the sway of a breeze.

Unrestrained.

Unlimited.

Boundless.

His heart began to beat so differently; stronger, deeper, filled to the brim with brand new purpose.

The smile that split his face was new. Wider, fuller, freer.

I love you, Oliver Queen.

Those five words changed his world.

He lay down on his bed, letting the words echo around his mind, invading every other single thought he had, permeating his entire being.

Felicity Smoak loved him.

What else mattered?

Nothing. Nothing else did.

Wasting absolutely no time, Oliver called her back, allowing himself to succumb to the thrum of adrenaline coursing through his veins.

She picked up on the fourth ring.

"Oliver I know this was so out of left field and the worst-"

"I love you too, Felicity," he interjected so quickly that it stopped both of them in their tracks.

A moment passed. Then another one.

Until, "…Really?"

It was timid and shy, but also danced with excitement and possibility.

He adjusted himself into a seated position as if she was standing in front of him.

"Felicity, I am so in love with you. Have been since our first date. I've wanted to tell you for the longest time but-"

"But I beat you to it," she said teasingly, but her voice was watery as if she was on the verge of tears.

"Yeah, you beat me to it. Always one step ahead of me, Smoak. Couldn't even let me have this moment," he laughed.

Her laugh matched his, full and hopeful.

"Oliver?"

"Yeah?"

A beat and then, "Are you sure?"

"More sure of this than I am about anything else in my life."

She let that settle for a second. "I'm…scared."

He exhaled strongly. "Yeah, me too. But we're in this together. And I'm not going anywhere, Felicity. I promise."

"I'm not going anywhere either," she promised back.

Oliver ducked his head, bashful, not believing his luck.

"Night Felicity. I love you."

"Love you," she answered and he knew she was beaming down the phone at him.

They lingered there for what could have been weeks, months, years but it didn't matter.

Tomorrow could wait. The next few days could wait. The next few weeks could wait.

What mattered was right now.

Thank you so much for reading, it really means a lot! Hope you're all keeping safe and well!