Wrapping up your entire life for a year – possibly longer – in a week isn't as easy as it sounds. Regardless, I was at the dock on the first day of spring with an overloaded backpack at my feet. Sara, the efficient blond woman who'd driven us across the harbor last time, was waiting for me when I arrived.

"Got it all right?" she asked, nodding to my backpack.

"I do. Thanks."

"Is that all you have? There's room – Dad said I should make space."

"Dad?" I asked, uncertain. Surely Reggie would have mentioned if Sara was another Merlyn.

"I'm Sara Lance – Quentin is my father."

"Oh! I didn't realize. You two don't look that much alike, though resemblance doesn't really mean anything. I love your father, though. I mean – platonic love, of course. So far, he's the only person who's not terrifying out here."

She laughed. "He has his moments, trust me – you should have been a teenage girl under his roof." She hesitated. "So…luggage?"

"Right! Sorry, I got distracted – which I do. No, the backpack is everything. I don't have that much."

"Guess not," she agreed. "My sister's a couple of years older than you, and that backpack wouldn't get her through an afternoon. I was always more the packing light kind, myself."

"I guess we have that in common, then."

With some effort, I hefted my pack over the railing and clambered over as the floor rocked beneath my feet. Sara untied the boat and gunned the engine. I tried to start a conversation a couple of times while we were out, hoping I might get more information on the Merlyns and the island, but Sara stared resolutely at the horizon for the entire journey. I got the sense she was actively avoiding talking to me, which I tried not to take personally.

For the past several days, the few hours I'd managed to sleep had been riddled with dreams of this place and the six girls who had walked with me my entire life, all of them speaking through me. Rose and Lucy and Mara, Winnie and Lily and Ella… I watched key moments of each of their lives play out, but it never exactly felt like I was watching those moments. I was living them, alongside each of the girls.

And in nearly every dream, Ray was there. Gazing at me with those deep brown eyes – sometimes soulful, but more often playful. Seductive, even. I felt his touch in the night. Hell, I felt it all the time. Walking down the street, something would trigger a vision, and that same surge of electricity I'd felt when we met in the greenhouse would rush through me again.

I actually considered canceling the whole thing. Based on the number of visions and the lack of sleep and everything else racing through my head, it seemed like Merlyn Manor probably wasn't the best thing for me. But if I was going crazy, I figured I might as well do it on a gorgeous, haunted estate on the Maine coast as anywhere else.

I told myself a thousand times that my decision had nothing to do with Ray Palmer. This had nothing to do with him.

But my gaze was still drawn to the island peak as soon as it was in sight. To the glass-paned house on the hill, and the mysterious man who lived there.

Quentin and Oliver met me at the dock, and Sara launched my backpack over the side of her boat like it weighed nothing.

"I've got one more run today. Do you know if Willa's still coming with?" Sara asked, the question directed to Quentin.

"I'm not sure – she's got some things going on at the manor, but she should be ready in about half an hour, sweetheart. You think you can keep out of trouble till then?"

"I can probably manage that. I wanted to get The Moira cleaned up, anyway – I've been running her pretty hard lately. See you later?"

"I'll let you know," he said. The easy way they had between them was exactly what I'd always wanted with my own father, and a lump formed in my throat watching them. Sara gave me a warm smile before she got back on the boat and headed toward the cabin.

"Take it easy out there okay, Felicity?" she called back to me. "I'm not far from you – Dad can get in touch if you need anything. I do boat runs to the mainland a few times a week for supplies."

"Thank you, I may take you up on that." I'd been on research trips to remote places in college – a couple of isolated islands in the South Pacific for a month at a time, and a stint in Guatemala that still made me nostalgic during summer rainstorms – so I wasn't new to living out of a backpack. Still, a year in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean was going to take some getting used to.

Once Sara was out of sight, I refocused on the two men waiting alongside me. Quentin wore jeans and an oversized black parka, while Oliver wore Carhartts and the same canvas jacket he'd let me borrow when I was on the island the last time. He nodded at me but didn't actually speak, which seemed like a very Oliver way to say hello.

"Well, I made it," I said. "Sara wasn't much of a conversationalist, but I think I'll get used to that around here." I looked at Oliver significantly. He gave me the same flicker of a smile I remembered from my last visit, and reached for my backpack. I snatched it off the ground before he could reach it, and tossed it over my shoulder. Well – tossed may be an overstatement. It was heavy, filled with more textbooks than clothes, and I stumbled under the weight when it landed with a thunk on my shoulder.

Instantly, Oliver was at my side, his hand at my elbow.

"I've got it," I said, stepping away from him.

"I'm sure you do," he said, "but it's a long trip back to the house, and I think Quentin wanted to talk to you about some things. I could walk on ahead…"

"Fine. If you want to be my pack mule, go for it." I frowned. "And I'm sorry if that sounded bitchy – I'm just tired, and I don't really know how to handle having a…you, following me everywhere." I shrugged the backpack off my shoulder and handed it to him. His eyebrows went up when he took the bag's full weight.

"You know, we have rocks out on the island," he said dryly. "There was no reason to pack yours for the flight."

"Very funny. They're books – I'm looking forward to working on the grounds, and I didn't want to wait until everything got shipped over. A Kindle would have been easier – and a lot kinder on my back – well, your back, I guess. But unfortunately, there aren't digital versions of most of my library yet. If it's too heavy—"

Oliver just smirked at me. "I think I can handle it." He looked at Quentin. "Unless you'd like me to wait, I can get this back to the house and meet you there?"

"That's fine," Quentin assured him. "We'll be along shortly. Thank you."

Oliver headed up the path with my pack slung over his shoulder, moving with long, easy strides that I envied. I hadn't realized I was watching his retreating backside quite so intently until Quentin cleared his throat. As retreating backsides went, Oliver's was kind of extraordinary.

I shifted my gaze abruptly, my cheeks heating yet again. "Sorry – what was that?" I asked Quentin. He looked amused, if a little concerned.

"I just asked if your trip was all right," he said.

"It was fine. Kind of long and kind of cramped, like all flights are, but otherwise…"

"You know, you could have upgraded your ticket. Or used the company jet—"

"There's a company jet?" I shook my head before he could answer. "Forget it, I don't even want to know. Do you have any idea what kind of havoc private airplanes have wrought on the environment? Not that the Merlyns care, obviously. But…" I pulled myself up short and turned to look at Quentin once more. "Thank you. But I don't need a company jet – I don't even need to fly first class. I'm here because I want to learn more about my parents, and because there are…questions, things I don't understand, about myself. I'm not here for the money."

"I understand that," Quentin said, looking at me with more kindness than I'd expected. "I didn't mean to imply anything. But there are advantages and disadvantages to carrying the Merlyn name… You might as well take the good if you're going to be stuck with the bad."

I started to ask him what that meant, since it seemed distinctly ominous, but he nodded to the trail ahead of us. "We should get going. We're expecting snow this afternoon – I'm sure you'd like to get inside and get warmed up."

I nodded wordlessly and followed him, grateful to be moving again. The air was cold and crisp, with enough wind to kick up the surf but not so much that it had made me want to die on the boat ride over. I took a second to take things in, noting that the trees were still bare, but a lot of the snow had melted over the past few days.

"So," I asked, once we were well on our way. "Where's Reggie? I kind of thought he'd be here when I got in."

Catch me, Uncle Reggie, Lucy called, and I looked up to see her ahead on the trail. The scene had been playing out more and more in my head recently. I'd almost forgotten the dour man I'd met when I was here last, replaced by the laughing Uncle Reggie in my visions.

"He couldn't be here today," Quentin said. "He'll be back for the weekend to help you get settled, though."

"What about the others? Tommy and Thea? Malcolm?" I paused on the trail when Quentin didn't answer right away. I frowned. "Let me guess – they don't want anything to do with me."

"Thea's not like that," he said. "She's a good kid, just lonely and a little misguided. She was really excited to hear about you, though."

"She did seem nice," I agreed. "And Tommy and Malcolm?"

He grimaced. "Yeah, well… Not everybody in the family's a peach, I'll give you that. If they give you a hard time, just come to me. Don't try to handle them on your own."

Was this what Oliver had meant when he said Quentin wanted to talk to me about something? "You make it sound like they're dangerous," I said. Whole seconds passed without Quentin arguing that point. "Are they? Dangerous, I mean?"

He stopped walking and turned to face me. His face was dark, brow furrowed. "Let's just say, Moira wanted me to keep Oliver around once you got here for a reason, and it wasn't because he looks pretty in a suit. With him around and me keeping an eye out, though, you don't need to worry about a thing. We've got you covered."

We walked on in silence after that while the weight of his words sank in. The grounds looked darker on our trek back this time, though it was only three in the afternoon and there had been full sun on the mainland. Maybe the sun just didn't shine out here. The yard was muddy when we reached the manor, and I paused at an elm tree I kept seeing in my visions. There was a tire swing in the visions, usually with either Lucy or Winnie swinging wildly on it… There was no tire swing now, but a frayed rope hung from an upper branch. Either there had been a swing once upon a time or this had been a hanging tree way back when. Looking around, it was hard to say which was more likely.

"You'll have your choice of bedrooms, of course," Quentin said as we reached the front door. Neither Oliver nor my backpack were anywhere in sight. "I've had all of them cleaned since you were here last, with fresh linens on all the beds."

"You didn't have to do all that. I thought you were the family lawyer, not the butler."

"I'm only a lawyer because I couldn't be a cop anymore," he said. He opened the front door and stepped aside, allowing me to enter first. "And I owe Moira and your grandmother a lot – I'm happy to help the family any way I can."

"Well, I appreciate it," I said. "Any help I can get at this point is good."

My backpack was waiting in the entrance when we got inside, so that was a relief. I heard voices within – Oliver and Willa, both of whom appeared as soon as Quentin closed the door behind us.

"You made good time," I noted to Oliver, who'd been here long enough to take off his jacket and get himself a cup of tea. Though the mug was steaming, he held it in a bare hand as though oblivious to the heat.

He shrugged, which I was fast learning was another typical Oliver reaction. Why waste time with words when body language can be just as ineffective?

"There's tea if you'd like," Willa said, her Scottish brogue welcoming enough to make me smile. "It's a cold day for travel."

"It is," I agreed. "Tea would be good. You don't have to wait on me, though. If I'm going to live here, I should probably learn my way around the place."

"Agreed," Quentin said. "But there will be plenty of time for that. Why don't you let me get the tea, and you and Willa can attend to things."

The way he said 'things,' with a loaded pause just before the word, made me uneasy. "Did you have any 'things' in mind?" I asked, knowing full well exactly what he meant.

"Dr. McLaren is here for the initial exam," Quentin said quietly. "It was part of the agreement," he reminded me.

My least favorite part of the agreement, as a matter of fact. There was no point fighting something I had already agreed to, though – I knew that. I'd spent enough time over the years tilting at windmills to know a losing battle when I saw one.

"Okay, fine. Where?" I asked, a hint of that earlier bitchiness creeping back into my tone.

"The study should work just fine, I expect," Willa said, suddenly briskly professional. "You're all right with it being just the two of us in there? If not, I can get somebody else to stand by."

Since the only other people I knew on the island so far were Quentin, Oliver, and Ray, I shook my head. Now that would be awkward. "No," I said. "It's fine. I trust you."

Three words I rarely said to anyone. It made no sense that now, with this woman I barely knew, I believed them implicitly. Her eyes held mine a moment, and a vision scratched at the back of my brain. It never materialized, though.

"Follow me, then," she said.

"We'll just wait in the kitchen," Quentin said, nodding to include Oliver in the statement. "Your tea will be waiting for you."

"Great," I said. I followed Willa.

The study had apparently been cleaned like the rest of the house, and now smelled of soap and aged leather, the faint scent of cigar smoke beneath it all. I stood frozen in the doorway for a second, my hand on the doorsill.

Just come in – no one will find out, a voice whispered. Rose. I watched as a young man crept through the door, his back to me.

If your father catches us, we're done for, the boy said though there was laughter in his voice. He turned to face me, and my chest tightened. Deep brown eyes. Chestnut hair.

Ray, though a couple of years younger than in my other visions.

Rose came into the frame, as though I were watching a movie. She took a cigar from the top drawer of a massive pine desk.

"Felicity," Willa said. She touched my shoulder and I flinched, the vision vanishing before my eyes. The pine desk remained, though – considerably older now, the top cleared of the books and papers I'd seen in the vision.

"I'm sorry," Willa said, withdrawing her hand. "You seemed…not here."

"I was here. I just space out sometimes."

She took a seat at the edge of the desk, nodding me to a plush leather chair. "Space out?" she asked. "I don't know what that means, lass."

"It's hard to explain. It's happened my whole life – kind of like daydreaming, I guess. Except it doesn't always happen during the day."

"All right, then." She hesitated. "And the…no touching. That could be a problem between us. I don't need to do a thorough exam every time, but I'll at least need to check your heart, listen to your lungs. I'll need to touch you."

"I know," I said. My voice was quieter now, my whole body wound up tight.

"You've worked with physicians before, surely," she said. "You've had exams."

"Of course. The State is all about exams – I grew up on them."

"It's not a good memory," she observed.

I thought of being a kid, after my adoptive parents died. Strangers holding me down while voices whispered in my ear and a hundred visions screamed through my head. The medication started not long after that. Years of misdiagnoses and psychotropic med cocktails, until those things were a thousand times worse than any vision I'd ever had.

"No," I said shortly. "It's not a good memory."

"How about we start slow, then," she said.

"That sounds good."

Willa hopped off the desk and came toward me cautiously, like she was approaching some wild animal. "Could you take your jacket off for me?"

I stood and shrugged the thing off, dropping it carelessly over my chair.

"Why don't you hop up on the desk," she said. "That will be less awkward."

I did as she instructed. Willa wasn't necessarily statuesque, but she had a couple of inches on me. She was right: being up on the desk put us on equal ground, or at least eye to eye, for the first time since we'd met. It was already clear that she was an attractive woman, but this close I could truly appreciate the flawless ivory skin, the dusting of freckles and the wide green eyes that gazed back at me. I'd initially thought her to be in her forties, but now I realized she might be older than that. Younger than Quentin, but not by much. She produced a stethoscope from a weathered leather bag, the old-fashioned kind doctors carry in black-and-white movies.

My anxiety grew by leaps and bounds as she warmed the steel between her hands.

"Do I need to take my shirt off?" I asked.

"If you don't mind," she agreed, then hesitated. Her eyes were keen on mine, taking in every inch of me as I unbuttoned the chambray shirt I'd been wearing and lay it on the desk beside me. Now stripped to my simple pink bra, I shivered in the cool air and tried to convince myself I hadn't made a mistake coming here.

"If you would prefer a different physician," she began, when I was about thirty seconds from a full-blown panic attack seated half-naked on my dead father's desk, "I hope you know that's not a problem. It's within your rights to choose whomever you'd like for this, Felicity. There are plenty of physicians on the mainland who could come out here. It's important you understand that you have power in this arrangement. I worry that Quentin and the others sometimes lose sight of that."

"I'm all right," I said, though the dry mouth and constant shivering didn't inspire much confidence in the truth of that statement. I took a deep breath, and steadied myself with some effort.

She smiled and took a step toward me, stethoscope in hand. "Good. Let's get started, shall we? You look like you're about to freeze or perish up there, lass. Deep breath." I took another breath as she stepped behind me and lay the stethoscope against my naked back. "And another." I considered her as I obeyed, finally beginning to relax. She had touched me, brushed against me more than once, and so far it hadn't triggered a single vision.

"Where did you study – to become a doctor, I mean? Your accent…"

"Aye," she said, still behind me. "Scotland. I studied over there, and got my doctorate just over a decade ago."

"And that's where you're from?"

"That's right. Inverness – that's where my people are from, at any rate. I've traveled a bit. Inverness will always be home, though. Have you been?"

"No. I traveled some in college, but I've never been to Europe." I wanted to ask what made her decide to leave Scotland and move here, but forgot the question when she produced a syringe from her bag. A really, really big syringe.

"I don't need any drugs," I said immediately.

Her brow furrowed, and I was caught in her green eyes once more. "No drugs," she promised. "I just want to draw some blood. I'll need a baseline so I can track any changes over the course of the year."

"Oh." I relaxed, though only slightly – needles are not my favorite thing. I watched as she pulled a rubber tube from her magic carpet bag.

"Did you have a specialty?" I asked, as she wrapped the tube around my arm. "In school, I mean?"

"Pediatrics." She uncapped the syringe with her teeth and managed to find a vein on the first try. I barely felt the enormous needle go in.

"Did you know Lucy?" I asked, trying to appear nonchalant. She froze. Went silent for a second.

"Lucy…?"

"A little bond girl – Moira and Robert's daughter, I think. Before me, obviously." And my sister, I added silently. I was still wrapping my head around that.

"Ah," Willa said quietly. "That Lucy. I never met her. She was long before my time."

"Do you know what happened to her?"

"She died." I think she would have left it there, but she sighed when the look on my face made it clear I wanted more than that. "You're a wee bit impossible," she said, though with a reassuring touch of fondness in the words. "Has anyone ever told you that?"

"You have no idea," I said.

She chuckled. "You're not so very unlike your mum, actually. Moira could test a saint's patience if there was something she wanted, or something she felt should be done. Always fighting the good fight – that was your mother."

I blinked back tears at the unexpected revelation. "She must have been heartbroken to lose her daughter. Do you know how it happened?"

"It was a boating accident, I think," she said. "Lucy was out with Reggie. I'm not sure what all went on, you'll have to ask someone in the family. Quentin would know, I'm sure."

"It was just the two of them in the boat – just Lucy and Reggie?" I asked, thinking again of all those visions of the two of them laughing together. Come find me, Uncle Reggie.

"It was. He was devastated, or so I've heard. I know he seems a bit harsh now, but I believe he loved that little girl."

"How old was she when she died?"

"Ten. Just turned." She looked sad for a moment, as though I'd struck a chord.

"But you didn't know her?" I pressed.

"No," she said quickly, snapping out of her reverie. "But it's always terrible to lose a child – I can only imagine what it must have done to Reggie. To all of them."

"It must have been horrible."

Willa capped the tube of blood she'd just drawn and threw the needle into a sharps container. She looked about to say something more, but was interrupted by a knock at the door that nearly made me jump right off the desk.

"Sara just called," Oliver called from the other side of the door. "She's ready to head back to the mainland. Will you be much longer?"

"We're just about finished," Willa called back calmly. I hurried to put my shirt back on, while Willa repacked her bag with cool efficiency. "We won't always be rushed like this," she assured me, "but I need to run some errands on the mainland. If I don't catch this boat with Sara, I won't get back for at least another week. Do you mind?"

I shook my head. "No. Of course – whatever you need to do. Don't worry about me. As far as I'm concerned, the less time this whole thing takes, the happier I'll be."

She laughed. "I suppose that's true, isn't it? Well, then I won't feel guilty."

She went to the door and opened it once she was sure I was decent. Oliver stood waiting with arms crossed over his broad chest, his jacket gone and another cable knit fisherman's sweater on in its place.

"Quentin will walk you to the boat," he told Willa.

"That won't be necessary. I'm perfectly capable of walking half a mile to the waterfront," she said, which made Oliver grimace.

"Fight with him about it, I'm not getting in the middle again. He's in the kitchen."

She nodded and excused herself once more, scooting past Oliver and back toward the kitchen. I was still on the desk, fastening the last button on my shirt. To my surprise, Oliver stepped into the room rather than following Willa.

"Did everything go all right?" he asked me. "With the exam, I mean?"

I frowned. "I think that's covered under doctor-patient confidentiality, but…well, yes, if you must know. No problems that I'm aware of, anyway."

"Good." He stayed where he was, just inside the threshold. I hopped down from the desk and went for my jacket only to find Oliver suddenly blocking the way.

"That birthmark," he said, nodding to my neck. He reached out and tipped my head to the side to give himself a better angle to view the butterfly-shaped mark on my neck. I backed away, anticipating another vision, but instead of the typical hurricane of images storming my brain, there was nothing. Well… Nothing, except an undeniable charge of electricity that ran through me at Oliver's touch.

"Sorry," he said. He stepped away, hands up. "I know – you don't like to be touched. But that's an interesting mark you have. Distinctive."

He tried to play it cool, but failed by a pretty impressive margin. No doubt about it, Oliver knew the significance of that birthmark. Or, at the very least, he had seen it before.

"I think it runs in my family," I said. "I've seen it in a couple of the portraits in the hall. I thought maybe my mother…"

"She didn't have it," he said.

"Oh." I didn't know why the news disappointed me. What did it matter whether my mother had the same birthmark I did? It didn't make her any less my mother. Then I realized what Oliver had said, and frowned. "Wait – how do you know my mother didn't have it? I thought you said you didn't sleep with her. Again – not that it matters."

He grinned, a sunny look that chased away what otherwise seemed like perpetual clouds. "The birthmark is on your neck, Felicity, not your thigh. I worked with Moira and Robert for five years; in that time, I saw her neck more than once."

"Right," I said, blushing like the idiot I was. "Of course. That makes sense."

He stepped close again, though he was careful not to touch me. He smelled good, a hint of soap and sweat and something else, something distinctive that I couldn't name. Was there a cologne that smelled like that? If there wasn't one yet, someone should totally figure out how to replicate it and get it out on the open market. You would make millions.

I forced myself to focus when I realized that Oliver was watching me, his blue eyes intent on mine.

"She may not have had the birthmark, but you definitely have her smile. And her eyes – blue with the flecks of gray, sometimes almost green on darker days." He held my gaze, the room suddenly about ten degrees warmer than it had been. "You get that from her."

Tears sprang to my eyes yet again, catching me off guard. I'm not usually a crier, but everything seemed to be overloading my system this week. Oliver looked surprised as well. I expected him to look away, since he didn't seem like the kind of guy who did well with big shows of emotion. Instead, he reached out carefully and brushed his thumb along my cheek, wiping a single tear away before it fell.

Our eyes held.

And suddenly, from nowhere, a vision blindsided me:

A dark alley. Oliver, his face dirty and running with sweat. We need to get her out of here. There's too much blood.

Don't let me die, a small voice said. A voice I knew as well as my own: Rose.

Please, Oliver. Don't let me die.

I blinked the images away. Oliver studied me intently, brow furrowed. I pulled away from his touch, stumbling in my rush to get back. Oliver caught my arm, eyes still searching my face.

"What just happened?"

"Nothing. I'm fine. I should go," I said quickly. "I need to get my stuff moved in, and Quentin's probably wondering where I am."

"He'll wait. What did you just see?" he persisted.

"I didn't see anything," I said. "Nothing that makes sense – it's just a thing that happens to me. That's always happened to me. Forget it."

I snatched my arm from him and tried to get to the door, but Oliver was blocking my path yet again. Instead, I went to the window that looked out onto the back of the property while I waited for my heart to settle back into a semi-normal rhythm. Oliver was still watching me, I knew; still waiting for an explanation. Instead of offering one, I focused on the world outside. It was mid-afternoon, the sky boiled gray overhead. A grove of spruce trees off to my left caught my attention and I couldn't figure out why at first. After a second or two, I realized that the branches were moving – as though someone had just ducked behind one of the trees.

"Felicity?" Oliver said.

I waved him off. "Is there –" I frowned, focused more intently on the trees. Oliver appeared somewhere behind me, caught in the reflection of the glass.

"Is there what?" he asked.

I started to point, but before I could the movement in the trees suddenly came into focus. A face appeared – or a mask, presumably with a face behind it. I froze. Oliver shouted my name just as the world around me exploded in a hailstorm of falling glass. Something seared my temple and I think I screamed, though I couldn't say for sure because an instant later my breath was gone and I was on the ground with Oliver on top of me.

I know, it's a cruel place to leave things. Have no fear, though, I will have the next chapter up tomorrow. If you're enjoying the story, of course, comments are always love. I'm just working my way through season six of the series now, so this little fantasy Oliver/Felicity world I've created is getting me through all the darkness of the show!