Oh hey guys! Thought you guys would like a St. Paddy's Day present. It is my favorite holiday after all. Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh! Éire go Brách!

The song for this chapter is Even If It Hurts by Sam Tinnesz.

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Chapter Twelve: Even If It Hurts

Felicity and Norah fell into a new sort of routine since Oliver left. After her third day of near hysterical panic and meltdowns, Barry had offered -threatened -to call her mother. That was enough to force her to go into work mode and stop thinking about everything so emotionally and to focus her energies on what they were going to do now. She had gone to work and managed to take care of a few projects plus her duties as business owner and boss. When she found that she could forget her worries for at least a little while she was distracted by work, she threw herself into it with a vengeance.

She would go to work, drop Norah off with her nanny, work on whatever she could, leave, bring Norah home, fix dinner or order in, read to her daughter and give her a bath before putting her to bed and then she would spend the rest of the night with a glass of wine and her Russian language program.

The idea to learn Russian had been Barry's. He'd casually mentioned it as a joke to her in an attempt to ease the tension she felt she was now plagued by. But she had seen the merit in the suggestion. She didn't know much about Oliver's mission but she knew that when -and she had to believe it was when and not if -he came home, he would be disoriented and maybe that would help. She didn't necessarily trust the shadowy government agency that had sent the love of her life away though she knew Diggle and Lyla would do everything they could for Oliver.

But this was the Russian mafia. If the short but descriptive description Oliver had provided her with was any indication, he was in very great danger and the longer he was away, the higher there was a chance of his being discovered or killed.

So she'd paid top dollar to learn Russian from a foreign language program and had even found a linguist who contracted with A.R.G.U.S. to teach her special phrases and words. If he thought her choice of conversational topics or phrases was odd, he didn't mention it. She assumed that since she'd told him she was associated with A.R.G.U.S. that he knew better than to ask too many questions. It was a small thing to make her feel like she was doing something helpful for Oliver even if she never ended up using it. She was picking it up easier than she had expected but she credited that to her own desperation and an excellent instructor. She shouldn't have been surprised when Lyla showed up at her door three weeks in, all business.

"Do you want to tell me what you think you're doing," she asked tersely as she walked into the apartment as soon as Felicity answered the door.

"Come on in, Lyla. I'm great. How are you," Felicity said sarcastically, stalling. Lyla turned an unamused glare on her.

"This is serious, Felicity. Did you really think that I wouldn't find out that you're learning Russian from one of our linguists? Just what do you think you are going to be doing?"

"You know, I've always wanted to learn Russian. It's such a romantic language and as the CEO of Arrow Tech, I feel like it's important for me to be able to communicate effectively with anyone we do business with," Felicity said breezily. She had been trying not to take her frustrations and fears out on Lyla but confronted with her no nonsense disapproval, Felicity found it harder not to blame the woman for taking Oliver away from her.

"Cut the bullshit," Lyla bit out. "I need to know what you think you're doing because if you have some crazy idea about interfering with Oliver's mission, you must think I'm a lot dumber than I look." Felicity whirled to face her, eyes flashing and face hard.

"I have a million ideas, Lyla. I never seem to stop thinking about Oliver's mission: what he's doing, where he is, how much danger he's in, if he'll come home, if there is something that I could be doing to help him. I dream about it and then it's the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing I think of at night! I literally never stop coming up with insane ideas about what I could be doing to help him! But most of those would probably get either or both of us killed so I went with the safest idea which was to sit on my thumbs and learn a foreign language!" Lyla stared at her and Felicity could see the sympathy and pity in her eyes.

"I understand how hard this is but you cannot get involved," Lyla started but Felicity stopped her.

"Save it, Lyla. We both know that I could be doing a lot more and I think we both know that if I wanted the details of Oliver's mission, there isn't anything that could stop me from getting that information." Lyla raised her brows at Felicity's naked threat. "Oliver trusts you, so I am trusting you. But I also know that if it comes down to it, Oliver is a single person and that A.R.G.U.S. has sacrificed a hell of a lot more for less." Lyla studied her contemplatively.

"You're right," she finally said and Felicity immediately started to argue before stopping.

"What?"

"You're right. We need Oliver but if it came down to it, the people I answer to would consider him collateral damage if it came between him and the well being of the people of this city. I have contingencies in place but there's no way of knowing how things are going to go down. There is only so much I can do." Felicity was sure that she should be feeling like she had won this argument but the picture that Lyla was painting for her was grim with very little chance at a happy ending. Her words felt like they were collecting heavily in Felicity's stomach like lead. "So I have a proposition for you."

"What would that possibly be," Felicity asked, feeling like she could be knocked over by a feather at this point.

"I want to train you." Her confusion must have been obvious on her face because Lyla chuckled. "I want to give you a crash course in being a spy. Keep learning Russian, that could probably only help with your hacking skills. But I want to start training you. I will teach you how to get in and out of places without being noticed or stopped. I'll give you some combat training. I want to prepare you for a worst case scenario."

"Why in the hell would you want me to learn any of this," Felicity asked, perplexed. Lyla hesitated before answering, looking around her apartment, eyes lingering on the pictures of Felicity's little family.

"No one is as invested in Oliver's safety as you are," she finally sighed. "I can have plans in place but a lot of them require someone on the ground or a team and when push comes to shove, we might not have those resources available. You… you are an amazingly talented and resourceful woman, Felicity. The things you can do with a computer alone make you a formidable asset. You're in Oliver's corner no matter what. I want to make it so that no one wants to come in the corner after him," she said with a grim smile and Felicity bit her lip. "I also know that you will drive yourself crazy if you don't feel like you can help."

And that was how Felicity found herself spending three nights a week plus weekends putting herself through physical hell learning how to hold her own against an opponent and then overpowering and incapacitating them. She'd always been somewhat stealthy and Lyla mentioned that she could have had a promising career as an operative. Felicity ignored her praise and instead ran through her drills and simulations until she couldn't keep her eyes open. She knew this was something she could do for Oliver, even if she was never called up to action.

Whenever she wasn't preparing for a nightmare scenario, Felicity spent every spare second with Norah who had only continued to grow in the three months since Oliver's departure for Russia. She was insanely intelligent and Felicity was filled with a burning regret that Oliver was missing her small attitude and little victories. Every night before bed, she would write to Oliver and tell him about her day but the letters were never posted. It became an easy outlet for her and she would didn't hold anything back. It was here that she filled the pages with her worries about his safety and about what kind of situation would be so dire as to need her to put her safety and life on the line to help him. She proudly boasted of Norah's developments and wondered what Oliver would think if he ever read any of it. Even when he returned, he might not want to experience every bout of crippling fear and uncertainty she experienced while he was in Russia going through hell. She waited constantly for news of him, of when he would be home.

But he'd been gone for three months and Felicity began to wonder if he had gotten himself into a situation that he wouldn't be able to get out of.